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Map of Equatorial Guinea’s
Major Offshore Oil and Gas Fields

I. Summary

Since 1968, the year Equatorial Guinea
gained independence from Spanish colonial rule, the country has been run by a
succession of repressive dictatorships. Until the mid-1990s it was one
of the more closed countries in the world; generally what little international
comment it attracted was for its dismal human rights record. But that all
changed when significant oil reserves were discovered off the country’s
coast in 1995. As one of the world’s newest oil hotspots, Equatorial
Guinea garners global attention as a valuable source of natural resources. Its
government, however, is setting new low standards of political and economic
malfeasance: billions of dollars in oil revenue have not
translated into widespread economic benefits for the population or dramatic
improvements in human rights, making Equatorial Guinea a classic example of an
autocratic and opaque oil-rich state.

After a bloody coup on August 3, 1979,
Equatorial Guinea has been for some 30 years under the control of President
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who, together with his family and close
associates, maintains almost absolute control over the country’s economic
and political life. The country has become the fourth-largest oil producer in
sub-Saharan Africa (behind only Angola, Nigeria, and Sudan) and a magnet for
foreign investment in the hydrocarbons sector. Gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita is on a par with Italy and Spain. But the broader population—just above
half a million people—enjoys little of the benefit and has not been
lifted from poverty, while the elite directs the country’s newfound wealth into its own pockets: the president’s son spent
more than US$42 million between 2004 and 2006 on luxury houses and cars in
South Africa and California, nearly a third of the total amount the government
spent on social programs—including health, education, and
housing—in 2005.

Dating back to before the oil boom, the
current regime’s efforts to control the country’s political space
and economic resources have fuelled a culture of fear marked by repression of
the opposition and military purges. The main difference in recent years is that
the stakes are higher: for a corrupt and nepotistic regime that has vastly
profited from the oil boom, the incentives to open up the political space and
become more accountable to the country’s citizens
are few. But with political power in Equatorial Guinea now a prize of
unprecedented worth, the country appears seriously unstable. There have been
some 12 real and perceived coup attempts since President Obiang came to power;
the real coup attempts often have been perpetrated by rival elites hoping to
seize the state’s economic resources. In 2004 alone there were three
alleged coup attempts, including one that involved South African mercenaries
and the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Court documents
and other correspondence suggest that the coup was aimed at deposing the
government in order to profit from Equatorial Guinea’s oil wealth.

Oil revenues have provided the Equatoguinean government with
the money needed to do a much better job realizing their citizens’
economic and social rights. Government officials have been derelict in taking
this opportunity, using public funds for personal gain at the expense of
providing key social services to the country’s population, and
squandering other potential revenues through mismanagement. The human toll of
the continuing chronic underfunding in areas such as education and health
becomes starkly apparent when comparing health and literacy levels over the past
10 years: where there was an opportunity for great advances on both fronts
using the large oil revenues, the situation either worsened or improved only
slightly and not in keeping with corresponding advances in other countries.

Government recognition of the problems and statements
suggesting a willingness to improve this situation have yet to move from
rhetoric to action. In 2005 the Equatoguinean government signaled to the
international community that it wished to participate actively in the Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a voluntary initiative aimed at
encouraging oil and mining companies to publish the payments they make to the
governments of developing world countries in which they operate. Now, the
momentum is questionable. Equatorial Guinea has stated a number of times its
willingness to embrace greater transparency, such as in the ambitious plans
drawn up during national consultation exercises in the 1990s that remain on
paper. As this report shows, there is a serious policy disconnect between the
official rhetoric and the reality on the ground in Equatorial Guinea. Indeed,
the EITI board should quickly remove Equatorial Guinea from its list of
countries if it does not make meaningful progress in implementing the initiative
and allowing civil society to participate in it.

Equatoguineans have no way to hold their government
officials accountable for their actions. Reliable
information on government spending is largely unavailable.
There is little meaningful or effective political opposition or independent
press. In May 2008 Obiang and his allies won 99 of 100 seats in parliament in
legislative elections that are known to have had serious flaws. Despite marking
his thirtieth anniversary in power in 2009, Obiang has also indicated that he
wants to seek re-election as president for a further seven years in the next
presidential elections (scheduled for December 2009). Freedom of expression,
assembly, and association are curtailed. This has severely hampered the growth
of a domestic civil society capable of monitoring and challenging
government action.

Arbitrary arrest and detention is common,
the regular reports of coup attempts often providing the pretext. Detention is
frequently accompanied by torture and ill-treatment. On June 5, 2008, his 66th
birthday, President Obiang pardoned 37 people (25 of them prisoners of
conscience) but many others remain in detention.

Since the discovery of significant oil
reserves brought increased attention to the country’s situation, the
Equatoguinean government has been under Western diplomatic pressure and
pressure from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to improve its human rights
record. Independent observers’ access to the country had been highly
restricted in the past, but there has been only limited progress in recent
years in allowing for any meaningful reporting on the human rights situation.
International human rights NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, still find
obtaining access to Equatorial Guinea a challenge.

China and the United States are
increasingly active in competing for oil investments and influence in
Equatorial Guinea, and President Obiang has sought maximum benefit from both. A
rapid upgrading of US relations since 2003 culminated in the arrival of a
resident US ambassador in Malabo in November 2006. Military and security
training by US private military company Military Professional Resources, Inc.
(MPRI), is ongoing in 2009, and the Equatoguinean government wants it to expand
its human rights training. The US focus on strengthening relations with
Equatorial Guinea appears to have blunted efforts to press the Equatoguinean
government on reporting human rights abuses and meeting human rights
benchmarks. Notably, the US embassy itself is rented from an official alleged
to have tortured opposition supporters.

A 2004 US Senate probe into Equatorial
Guinea’s dealings with the US-based Riggs Bank
(now part of PNC Bank) threw light upon how Equatorial Guinea has in the past
managed its funds from the oil industry. The role of US oil companies in
Equatorial Guinea also came under official investigation—an important
development, as it signaled to them that even in Equatorial Guinea they will
not escape scrutiny of their business dealings. According to statements by
Senator Carl Levin at a 2004 hearing on the matter, some companies, such as
Marathon Oil Corporation and Hess Corporation, “fully cooperated”
with the investigation. However, Levin noted that ExxonMobil
Corporation had “not been as forthcoming” as the other companies.

The Bush administration largely failed to
hold the government of Equatorial Guinea accountable. Despite a damning
investigation by Senate staff and the imposition of some of the largest fines in
history against a US bank because of its business with Equatoguinean government
officials, the administration welcomed President Obiang to Washington. Any
protestations the United States might have made about human rights or any
condemnations of government corruption were effectively negated by the
high-level support the administration showed for the Obiang regime.

The new Obama administration has an
opportunity to show that energy security does not have to come at the expense
of human rights and good governance. It should determine whether there are
assets in the United States obtained through corruption by senior officials in
the Equatoguinean government and work to repatriate those assets to their
rightful owners: the people of Equatorial Guinea. It should ensure through new
or existing laws and regulations that US companies do not become complicit in
the corruption and abuses that mar resource-rich countries like Equatorial
Guinea.

The government of Equatorial Guinea is
clearly in a position to invest more toward the progressive realization of its
citizens’ economic and social rights, as well as those rights associated
with due process. The 2006 and 2007 national budgets passed by parliament
allocated increased expenditures to education and health. But beyond
that, greater transparency, accountability, and freedom of
expression and association, coupled with the political support for the building
up of credible institutions, are what Equatorial Guinea needs if it is to break
out from its cycle of political instability and authoritarian responses to
internal crisis. This should be in the interest of the Equatoguinean government,
its international partners, and the multinational oil companies operating in
the country.

Methodology

Between 2004 and 2008 Human Rights Watch interviewed
Equatoguinean political prisoners, government officials, and oil company
representatives, analyzed statistics pertaining to socioeconomic indicators and
government social spending in Equatorial Guinea, and reviewed countless
publications addressing a wide range of issues related to corruption, financial
mismanagement, and political instability in the country. This report is based
on that research.

In August and September 2003 Human Rights Watch traveled to
Bioko Island,Equatorial Guinea, to collect information for this report.
We interviewed threepolitical prisoners, five government officials, and
four representatives from six companies operating in Equatorial Guinea. The
identities of most of these persons have been withheld to protect their privacy
and safety. From 2004 through 2008 additional in-person and telephone
interviews were conducted with 15government officials, deportees, and
refugees in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Cameroon, Côte
d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, and South Africa. All interviews were
conducted in English or Spanishby a Human Rights Watch researcher.

Human Rights Watch also obtained several hundred pages of
official documents from the US government detailing its 2004 investigation into
allegations of money laundering and corruption at the US-based Riggs Bank. We
reviewed these documents as well as documents providing supporting evidence of
corrupt practices by the Equatorial Guinean president and his family members,
including US court and property records and South African court records
detailing assets held by Equatoguinean officials in that country. We also
analyzed Equatoguinean social indicators in relation to economic indicators and
government social spending data provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
All documents cited in this report are either publicly available or on file
with Human Rights Watch.

In the interests of fairness and accuracy in our reporting,
we sent letters to each of the six oil companies probed in the
US Senate’s 2004 investigation. We asked the companies for an update on
their practices since 2004 in relation to any payments to, or business
ventures with, Equatorial Guinean officials, their family members, or entities
they control. We also asked them to update us on the status of any pending
investigations into their operations in Equatorial Guinea. All but one company,
Vanco Energy, replied at this writing. For those companies that did respond, we
have incorporated the responses we received into the text of this report and
appended their replies in full.

II. Background

The
Macías Dictatorship, 1968-79

Equatorial Guinea was one of two
Spanish colonies in Africa (the other being the former Spanish Sahara, which is
now under Morocco’s de facto and disputed control). Upon
independence in 1968 Francisco Macías Nguema was elected the
country’s first president. Macías quickly abandoned democracy and
went on to make Equatorial Guinea one of Africa’s most repressive and
dictatorial states; during his rule, an estimated 100,000 people—at the
time, approximately one-third of the population—were killed or fled into
exile.[1] Widespread persecution of the political opposition and elites began
in 1969. A year later all opposition parties were outlawed, and the Partido
Unico Nacional (PUN) was created.[2] In 1972 Macías declared himself president-for-life. Once the
political opposition was eliminated, the government began to harass and
intimidate the Roman Catholic Church, which was seen as another possible
institution of opposition.[3] The government claimed, “There is no other God than
Macías,” and the phrase “God created Equatorial Guinea
thanks to Macías—Without Macías Equatorial Guinea would not
exist” became a mandatory part of all church services. In 1975 a decree
banning all private education led to the closure of all Catholic schools, and
the population was warned that contact with the church would lead to severe
punishment. The same year Macías proclaimed himself the “Unique
Miracle.”[4]

The regime was virulently anti-intellectual. Between 1969
and 1976 some 75 teachers or education officials were executed, including three
ministers. Hundreds of teachers were fired, causing hundreds of schools to
close.[5]

The regime’s hostile stance toward intellectualism was
not limited to the education system. Any educated Equatoguineans were seen as a
threat, and professionals, such as statisticians, could be killed. As a result
little economic data was generated on Equatorial Guinea throughout the 1970s. In
fact, the use of the term “intellectual” was prohibited by Macias
in 1973.[6]

Economic mismanagement and corruption were rife, and
relationships with trading partners such as Spain were strained. Due to pilferage, ignorance, and neglect, the country’s
infrastructure fell into ruin under Macías. The
private and public sectors of the economy were devastated and the agricultural
sector, historically known for cocoa of the highest quality, has never fully
recovered from the crippling effects of this 11-year dictatorship. The
country was the poorest in central Africa and one of the most heavily indebted
by the time Macías was deposed in 1979.[7]

Obiang—Democracy
Pledged but Authoritarianism Preserved

Macías was deposed on August 3,
1979, in a military coup by his nephew and then-minister of defense, Lt. Col.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.[8] As president, Obiang—not to be outdone by his predecessor and
uncle—continued in the tradition of consolidating absolute and
self-aggrandizing power. State-run radio announced in July 2003 that Obiang was
“like God in heaven.... He has power over men and things.... He can
decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell
because it is God himself with whom he is in permanent contact, who gives him
strength.”[9]

Under Obiang, schools have reopened,
primary education has expanded, and public utilities and roads have been
restored; to that extent his rule compares favourably with Macías’s tyranny and terror. But the US Department of State and
other institutions have criticized the Obiang government for not investing in
genuine reform and the development of public institutions.[10] Widespread corruption and a dysfunctional judicial system undermine
development of society and the economy.

Obiang pledged to restore democracy, but
there has been little real progress in that direction. Initially, Obiang ruled
the country with the assistance of a Supreme Military Council. The United
Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) helped draft a new constitution in
1982, and this came into effect after a popular vote on August 15 that year.
Obiang remained in power for a further seven-year term before being elected for
the first time in 1989. In February 1996 he was re-elected with 98 percent of
the vote after several opponents withdrew from the race and international
observers criticized the election.[11] Despite the pledge to restore democratic rule, the country remained
a one-party state until 1991, when multiparty politics were introduced under
another new constitution that permitted opposition parties. In reality, what
organized political opposition has emerged is under constant threat, while
Obiang, along with a circle of advisors drawn largely from his own family and
ethnic group, and his party, the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial, PDGE, founded in 1987 and replacing PUNT), control all aspects of
the government. As described by the US Department of State in 2008, “The
president names and dismisses cabinet members and judges, ratifies treaties,
leads the armed forces and has considerable authority in other areas as
well.”[12]

Political
arrangements and regional balance of power

The geography and ethnic makeup of
Equatorial Guinea have important repercussions for the balance of political
power within the country. Equatorial Guinea consists of a mainland portion,
situated on the west central African coast between Gabon to the south and
Cameroon to the north, and five islands. The smaller islands of Corisco, Elobey
Grande, Elobey Chico, and adjacent islets, along with the nearby mainland,
together make up the continental region known as Rio Muni. Bioko Island, where
Equatorial Guinea’s capital, Malabo, is located, lies roughly 40
kilometers (25 miles) off the coast of Cameroon to the north (see Map of
Equatorial Guinea).

While the majority of
the Equatoguinean people are of Bantu origin, historical divisions between the
many Bantu-speaking peoples of the region still exist today. The largest Bantu
tribe, the Fang, constitutes roughly 80 percent of the population of Equatorial
Guinea. The Fang are indigenous to the mainland, but substantial migration to
Bioko has resulted in their dominance over the tribe of Bantu inhabitants
native to the island, the Bubi.

Traditionally, Equatorial Guinea’s
prime minister has been from the Bubi minority, which constitutes just six
percent of the country’s population. The last Bubi prime minister,
however, was Miguel Abia Biteo Boricó: following the forced resignation of Boricó’s cabinet in August 2006 on charges of corruption and incompetence (a
charge the president has levelled against members of his government on various
occasions), Obiang broke with tradition and appointed as prime minister Ricardo
Mangue Obama Nfubea, a Fang.[13] Nfubea’s government had the same fate as its predecessor less
than two years later, in July 2008, with Obiang adding accusations of
destabilizing the country to charges of corruption and mismanagement[14] (the corruption allegations against successive recent governments
are elaborated in the next chapter). Notwithstanding Obiang’s declaring
that “[w]e must change the entire government,”[15] later that month half of the old cabinet was reinstated in a new
administration headed by Prime Minister Ignacio Milam Tang, also of Fang
decent.

Discrimination against ethnic Bubi who are
not part of the dominant political party is widespread.[16]

Political
parties and the political opposition

As control of the government—and
corresponding access to rising oil revenues—becomes increasingly
lucrative, the democratic process in Equatorial Guinea has not improved, and
the government has consistently been able to avoid accountability in elections.
Equatorial Guinea is nominally a multiparty democracy, but through the use of
criminal prosecutions, intimidation, and coercion, the PDGE-led government has
managed to maintain an effective monopoly over political life. The extremely
high stakes represented by the oil boom have led to ever-increasing political
control over an already weak opposition, whose members the government has
regularly intimidated, exiled, or imprisoned.

After the 1991 constitution legalized
political parties, a January 1992 law on party formation initiated the process
of party organization. The 1992 law, though, restricted party membership and
activity to those who had lived continuously in Equatorial Guinea for 10 years.
Since some opposition politicians had been in exile since independence, the
effect was to prohibit serious opposition. Obiang established the ruling PDGE as the country's sole legal political organization in 1987. The Convention Liberal Democratica, the
Unión Popular (UP), and the Alianza Democratica Progresista all were
recognized in 1992. The Partido del Progreso de Guinea Ecuatorial (PPGE) was
legalized after a long delay and, in 1993, the Partido Socialista de Guinea
Ecuatorial (PSGE) was approved. The Convergencia para la
Democracia Social (CPDS), a key opposition party and
the only one that engages in any type of human rights monitoring, was granted
recognition in 1993.[17] By mid-1993, 13 legal opposition parties stood prepared to contest
elections. Political parties, however, continued to face harassment, and in
June 1997 the PPGE was banned by presidential decree. The government accused
the PPGE leader, journalist Severo Moto, of plotting a coup against Obiang,
linking him to arms intercepted by Angolan authorities on a Russian boat
destined for Equatorial Guinea. Moto went into exile in Spain, but the
government continued to seek his extradition to face trial. In March 2004 he
became associated with another coup attempt (see Chapter VI), and was accused
of a further coup plot in 2008 (see Chapter V).

As of 2009 there may be as many as 33
political parties in Equatorial Guinea. However, some may not be legally
registered. Of the legally recognized parties, 11 formally oppose the ruling
PDGE but are nevertheless pro-presidential, to the extent that they accepted
inclusion into a government of national unity proposed by President Obiang in
2003. Only the CPDS is actively opposed both to the PDGE and to Obiang. In 2007 the US Department of State noted the dominance of the PDGE
and the cost of being in opposition:

The government pressured public employees
to join the ruling ... party. Reportedly they are forced to allow automatic
deductions from their paychecks with proceeds going to the party whether or not
they were members. Opposition party members are regularly discriminated against
in hiring, job retention, scholarships, and obtaining business licenses. A
business found to have hired someone on a political blacklist had to dismiss
the person or face the threat of closure.[18]

Elections

There have been no free and fair elections
since independence in 1968. The calling of elections has often been accompanied
by intimidation and imprisonment of the opposition; the government has
typically used the pretext of thwarting a coup attempt as justification for its
actions (see Chapter V).

In elections for the Chamber of
People’s Representatives (parliament) held in November 1993
Obiang’s PDGE won more than three-quarters of the seats amid a partial
boycott led by the anti-government Combined Opposition Platform. A similar
situation prevailed for the February 1996 presidential election, from which the
three main opposition parties withdrew, and Obiang was elected unopposed. The
September 1995 municipal elections were the freest held in Equatorial Guinea to
date. Although there had been some harassment prior to the elections, the
campaign was fairly quiet, and voting on the day was free. The government,
however, refused to accept the results and placed its own people in the
councils.[19] The bulk of the opposition once more boycotted the legislative
elections in March 1999, and the PDGE inevitably won a massive
majority—75 out of 80 seats.

In the run-up to the December 2002
presidential election there was again a crackdown on the political opposition.
The elections were announced at short notice, and the four main opposition
candidates withdrew on polling day, claiming the process was flawed.
Independent observers who visited Equatorial Guinea during the election period
described many irregularities,[20] and the European Union and United States criticised the conduct of
the election.[21] As a result of the opposition candidates’ withdrawal Obiang
was re-elected with over 97.1 percent of the vote. The ruling party’s
victory in the concurrent local government elections was more emphatic still,
with a clean sweep of all 30 municipalities.

April 2004 elections

On February 20, 2004, the president
dissolved the Chamber of People’s Representatives, and legislative and
municipal elections were held on April 25, 2004. The results gave the PDGE 98
of 100 seats in the new single-chamber parliament and 237 out of 244 city
councillorships.

According to the US Department of
State’s assessment of human rights practices in 2004, the Equatoguinean
government harassed opposition party members prior to the elections and
subjected them to arbitrary arrest. PDGE members, according to the report, also
went door-to-door seeking out and threatening opposition supporters.[22] On election day the CPDS complained of multiple procedural
violations and fraud. The State Department noted “widespread reports of
irregularities, including intimidation at the polls. Voters were discouraged
from voting in secret, ballots were opened, and ruling party representatives
cast votes in their own right as well as on behalf of children and the
deceased. There also were reports that security forces intimidated voters by
their presence in polling booths. There was a lack of observers in rural
areas.”[23] The Spanish government questioned the validity of the election
results when its observer mission “detected important irregularities that
distorted the electoral process.”[24] Nonetheless, local election officials said that the vote had been
free and fair with 95 percent turnout, and they stressed the use of transparent
ballot boxes which they said had prevented ballot stuffing.[25]

May 2008 elections

The most recent legislative elections, for
100 parliamentary seats and 230 municipal councillor posts, were held in May
2008.

In early April the PDGE forged an alliance
with nine small parties that also supported Obiang.[26] Only three parties participated in the election outside the
alliance: the opposition CPDS, and two other parties that were pro-presidential
but had opted not to ally with the PDGE, UP and Accion
Popular de Guinea Ecuatorial (APGE).

As in previous years, in the run-up to the
elections there were allegations of coup attempts,[27] and consequently an increased military and security presence on the
streets of all major towns. The Ministry of Defense also closed land and sea
borders from April 22 until the elections took place, claiming it was necessary
to improve national security and avoid external interference in the polls. On
election day there were also allegations from the opposition of harassment and
many irregularities at polling stations.[28]

The European Union did not send observers
because the government’s invitation came too late to organize a mission.
The authorities refused visas to major Spanish media outlets even though they
had submitted visa applications on time—weeks before in some cases.[29] Three Spanish parliamentary deputies who visited the country during
the elections, while welcoming the fact that a vote had been held, voiced their
concerns about the process.[30]

The US Department of State reported,

A small, mixed contingent of international
observers characterized the elections as an improvement over the last
legislative and presidential elections, which were severely marred by
irregularities and were not free and fair.... Despite these improvements over
past elections, there were reports of notable electoral irregularities,
including harassment of opposition supporters and voters at polling stations
and during the campaign, some of which was captured on video by the opposition
CPDS, and several reports by the international media of the failure by local
election authorities to ensure voting by secret ballot. A respected
humanitarian organization with personnel working in different parts of the
country characterized the election as “not very transparent.”[31]

On May 9, 2008, the National Electoral
Commission announced that the PDGE and its allies had obtained 99 of 100 seats
in the parliamentary elections, the remaining seat going to the CPDS. The PDGE
also swept the board in the concurrent local elections.[32]

Upcoming presidential elections

Political instability and uncertainty,
resulting from a lack of democratic and transparent practices and reflecting
the weaknesses of a political system built around the personality of the
president and a small circle of his relatives, have made succession to Mr.
Obiang a divisive issue. As another presidential election draws
near—Obiang has said it will take place in December 2009—this
uncertainty has proved increasingly corrosive to the political status quo.
Tensions among sub-clans of the Fang ethnic group, especially resentment of the
political dominance of the Mongomo sub-clan, are a constant source of unrest.
The growing prosperity of the Mongomo through their control of economic
activities, including construction and services to the oil industry, has
exacerbated the situation. Mr. Obiang’s announcement in August 2006 that
he would run for re-election in 2009 was in part an effort to reduce
speculation about who would succeed him.

Human
Rights Record of Recent Governments

The devastating human rights violations in
Equatorial Guinea under Macías resulted in the United Nations (UN)
focusing, belatedly, on the country’s situation. After the 1979 coup, and
following a request by the new government for technical assistance on how to
improve human rights, the UNCHR in 1982 appointed an independent expert on
Equatorial Guinea to monitor the situation. The expert retired in 1992, and in
1993 the UN appointed a special rapporteur for Equatorial Guinea, a title that
comes with a much wider mandate. By 1999 the human rights situation in the
country was perceived as “improved,” and the UNCHR appointed a
special representative instead. The special representative’s mandate was
narrower than that of the special rapporteur—although it also included a
call for implementation of technical assistance programs—and it was only
renewed for two years, until 2002, when governments sympathetic to Obiang
successfully lobbied against its continuation.[33] In his final report the last special representative, Gustavo
Gallón, stated,

The problem can be summarized as the
absence of any genuine rule of law under what is actually a single-party regime
(although in formal terms multiparty politics is permitted) functioning with
the support of a military whose powers are no different from those of the
police and which even exercises jurisdiction over civilians. Following the
overthrow of Francisco Macías’ dictatorship in 1979 by his nephew
... the Government proclaimed itself democratically based and accordingly
established a number of democratic institutions; however, the population lacks
any legal safeguards and any person can be deprived of his liberty at any
moment and has no effective remedy to impede, rectify, or repair that
situation.[34]

Gustavo Gallón was referring to the
lack of due process, the lack of freedom of expression and association, and the
arbitrary manner by which the government acted, which continues to be a
hallmark of Equatorial Guinea in 2009.

There are no independent human rights
organizations in the country.[35] In fact, there is very little civil society in Equatorial Guinea at
all. There are signs that the country is opening up somewhat under pressure to
meet Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative criteria from the World
Bank, the US and EU governments, and companies. However, these are very nascent
efforts, and it is far from clear that the government will allow independent
civil society to function in regard to EITI or in general. A United States
Agency for International Development (USAID)-led initiative, the Technical
Support Project for Social Investment and Capacity Building in Equatorial
Guinea (TSPSICB), is tasked to engage in nongovernmental organization capacity
building. In its design and implementation plan TSPSICB highlighted that
“existing capacity of civil society is extremely underdeveloped and
requires a significant amount of investment and support to enable them to reach
a level to be effective actors for Equatorial Guinea.”[36]

The following chapters detail endemic governmental
corruption and financial mismanagement, and how these have contributed to
widespread poverty and deprivation, in some cases violating human rights under
the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
The government’s dereliction in allocating funds for crucial social
services such as primary health care and primary education, in large part
because of corruption and maladministration, is in breach of its obligations under
articles 12 and 13 of the ICESCR.[37]The government of Equatorial Guinea
has also violated its treaty obligations to report on its compliance with the
ICESCR: compliance reports under the ICESCR were due in 1990, 1995, 2000, and
2005; to date, Equatorial Guinea has yet to submit even one.[38]

The lack of transparency and accountability in oil revenue
management impedes Equatoguineans’ right to access information, in
violation of article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR).[39] The
government of Equatorial Guinea has also failed to meet its treaty obligations
to report on its compliance with the ICCPR. An initial compliance report was
due in 1988; absent this report, the Human Rights Committee issued provisional
concluding observations on the situation of civil and political rights in
Equatorial Guinea in November 2003, calling on the government of Equatorial
Guinea to submit its initial report by August 1, 2004.[40]
To date, this report has not been submitted.

The
Onset of Oil

Equatorial Guinea is emerging as one of the
fastest growing economies in Africa. After the discovery of massive oil
reserves in the 1990s, it has become the fourth-largest producer of oil in
sub-Saharan Africa, after Angola, Nigeria, and Sudan.[41] Oil revenue climbed in value from US$3 million in 1993 to $190
million in 2000 to $4.8 billion in 2007. Recent discoveries of oil were
expected to increase production of hydrocarbons to about 465,000 barrels per
day (b/d) in 2008.[42] However, unless there are further significant discoveries oil
production will start to decline in 2009.

From 2003 to 2008 Equatorial Guinea’s
real annual gross domestic product grew on average by 14.9 percent per year.
The International Monetary Fund estimated that the oil sector accounted for
nearly 74 percent of the country’s GDP and that oil revenues comprised
approximately 82 percent of government revenue in 2007.[43]
By 2008, the country’s GDP was estimated at $18.5 billion—an
increase of 5,272 percent between 1992 and 2008—almost completely from
oil revenue.[44]

US oil companies, such as ExxonMobil, Hess,
Marathon, Chevron Corporation and Vanco Energy Corporation, are the principal
investors in the country. The country has become one of the main destinations
of US investment on the continent (over $12 billion to date), the
fourth-highest in sub-Saharan Africa (after South Africa, Angola, and Nigeria).[45]

Companies in the oil business have been
anxious to improve the image of the country and so underplay how politically
unstable the country has become. They avoid political discussion or meeting the
opposition directly.[46] According to opposition leader Plácido Micó, oil has
had a “negative impact” on the democratic process and has managed
“to strengthen the dictatorship” in the country. He argued that oil
wealth has also made Equatorial Guinea more resilient to international pressure
to improve its human rights record.[47]

Corruption Defining the
Oil Boom

Government corruption and nepotism, along
with the lack of a civil society or human rights advocates, have defined the
conditions under which businesses operate and the population lives and works in
Equatorial Guinea. Since the discovery of oil in the mid-1990s, internationally
there have been numerous allegations of corruption against the government,
particularly against President Obiang and his family.

Most recently, in late 2008 a human rights
group in Spain accused President Obiang and other current and former Equatoguinean
government officials of siphoning US$26 million from an Equatorial Guinean
state-owned oil company and using it to buy houses in Madrid, Asturias, and the
Canary Islands.[48] Other questionable practices include ownership by government
officials of land that is rented or sold to foreign companies or governments;
contracting with companies in which government officials have significant
ownership stakes; scholarships or other services paid to relatives of
government officials by foreign investors; and transactions by government
officials involving tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals or the
purchase of luxury items such as mansions or exotic cars.[49]

Corruption and mismanagement do not go
unremarked upon inside the country, but their pursuit appears highly selective.
Two months after being installed as prime minister, Ricardo Mangue Obama Nfubea
stated on October 20, 2006, “My Government will not permit any shred of
corruption and we will fight for transparency.”[50] Nfubea introduced a telephone hotline, ostensibly for oil companies
to report corrupt practices, but although five government officials were
sentenced in November 2006 to prison sentences ranging from 6 to 12 months for
embezzling $380,000 of public funds, Nfubea’s initiatives had little
discernible impact on government corruption.[51] Moreover, in accepting the Nfubea government’s resignation on
July 5, 2008, Obiang reportedly called it “one of the worst ever
formed,” accusing it of corruption, irregularities, and mismanagement.[52] As noted above, however, half of the old cabinet was reinstated in
the government installed a month later.

Nepotism

Equatorial Guinea does not keep updated
statistics on employment but has an estimated unemployment rate of about 30
percent. Contracts of employment in Equatorial Guinea are generally done
verbally and are not expressed in a document. Only in the oil industry are they
formalized in writing, but because this is done through subcontracting,
contracts of employment are made between workers and intermediary contracting
agencies. According to a report published by Fundación Paz y
Solidaridad Serafín Aliaga and the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions in 2006, these agencies, or “business
centers,” include:

AMILOCASER (owned by Armengol Ondo Nguema,
the president’s brother, army general, and national delegate for
security), NOMEX (owned by Gabriel Mbega Obiang Lima, the president’s son
and mining and energy secretary of state), MSS (owned by Antonio Mba Nguema,
the president’s brother, army general, and minister of defense), ATSIGE
(owned by Manuel Nguema Mba, the president’s uncle, army general, and
minister of security), APEGESA (owned by Juan Oló Mba Nseng, the
president’s father-in-law, former minister of mining and hydrocarbons,
and Atanasio Elá Ntugu Nsa, currently minister of mining and energy) and
BOMDEN (owned by Julian Ondo Nkumu, army colonel and director general of
presidential security).[53]

USAID noted in a January 2007 report that
in Equatorial Guinea’s economy “small contracting agencies are
frequently owned by persons with close ties to [the government] and therefore
unreliable in their capacity to provide quality personnel rather than political
favourites.”[54]

Equatorial
Guinea Indications of Corruption

The bulk of information on governmental
corruption has emerged from official investigations by the US Senate’s
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a body that has considerable
investigative power (including subpoena power), of the US-based Riggs Bank, as
well as from civil lawsuits filed against government officials for failure to
pay for luxury goods or services rendered. The following is a sample of such
instances.

The
Riggs Bank scandal

In May 2002 Human Rights Watch learned that
hundreds of millions of dollars of oil revenue were deposited in at least one
account held by the government of Equatorial Guinea at Riggs Bank in
Washington, DC.[55] In January 2003 the Los Angeles Times provided further
details of the Equatorial Guinean government’s use of funds deposited at
Riggs, including allegations of corruption.[56] Following that exposé, the US investigative television news
program 60 Minutes aired a story on the misuse of oil revenue in
Equatorial Guinea and the connection to Riggs Bank.[57] Those disclosures prompted the Democratic minority staff of the US
Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to undertake in 2004 an
investigation into the role of Riggs Bank in hosting the Equatorial Guinean
government’s funds.

According to Riggs Bank, the accounts in
question operated from 1995 until 2004 and totalled as much as $700 million.
Offshore accounts are common among oil producers in order to receive payments
in dollars, but, importantly, President Obiang and his close relatives
maintained signatory authority over many of the Riggs accounts and had complete
discretion over the use of those funds.[58] In 2003 Obiang told a British journalist, “I am the one who
arranges things in this country because in Africa there are lots of problems of
corruption. If there is corruption, diversion of funds, then I’m
responsible. I’m 100 percent sure of all the oil revenue because the one
who signs is me.”[59]

Since the late 1990s the International
Monetary Fund has consistently advocated to the Equatorial Guinean government
that all such accounts be merged into one treasury account with the Bank of
Central African States (BEAC), the regional bank for central Africa.[60] This has never happened. In his book My Life For My People,Obiang explained why he ignored IMF advice:

I can understand economic and financial conditions but
reasonable deadlines must be established and the local situation must be taken
into account. There were additionally, purely political conditions that had to
do with the alleged human rights violations and the so called lack of
transparency in our political life. At the time I clearly said what I think
about this. There was also an additional demand: we had to designate an auditor
for payments and budget, a responsibility that I have always performed myself
because it is so important for the development of the country. The IMF wanted
me to entrust the responsibility to others, which I refused. If the Equatorial
Guinea people had entrusted me with this responsibility, it was not up to the
IMF staff to say the opposite.[61]

Despite Obiang’s claims that his
decision to ignore the IMF was based on his concern for the welfare of the
country, it is clear that some of those funds were actually used for his own
personal gain. In its January 2003 article the Los Angeles Times
reported that Riggs helped Obiang finance two mansions, then worth
approximately $1.2 million and $2.6 million, in an affluent Maryland suburb of
Washington, DC.[62] Property records show that those houses were purchased under the
president’s name, with a Riggs Bank branch listed as his mailing address.[63] Such transactions highlight the opaque nature of the budgetary
process in Equatorial Guinea and the potential for the diversion of state
revenue into personal hands.

The Senate investigation report, released
publicly on July 15, 2004, clearly detailed the extent of the misuse of public
funds by individuals in the Equatoguinean government.[64] The amounts of money deposited at Riggs were so large that by 2003
the government of Equatorial Guinea was the largest client of the bank.[65] One account, set up in January 1996, was in the name of the
Republic of Equatorial Guinea General Treasury. It received funds mostly from
oil companies, primarily ExxonMobil.[66] This account needed two signatures, one from President Obiang and
the other either from his son Gabriel Obiang Lima, then deputy mines and
hydrocarbons minister, or his nephew Melchor Esono Edjo, secretary of state for
the treasury. Any one of those same signatories could withdraw funds from
another account, which held balances of up to $500 million at a time. Riggs
subsequently allowed wire transfers to two companies that were unknown to the
bank and had accounts in jurisdictions with bank secrecy laws.[67] The subcommittee concluded that at least one of these recipient
companies is controlled in whole or in part by the president of Equatorial
Guinea.[68] In 2004, when Riggs asked the president about these accounts, he
declined to provide further information except to confirm the transfers of
funds to them had been authorized.[69]

In addition to the accounts already
discussed, five more accounts and three certificates of deposit at Riggs were
held in the name of Constancia Mangue Nsue Okomo, Obiang’s senior wife.
ExxonMobil made several payments into these accounts. Additional accounts were
also opened in the names of other friends and relatives of Obiang.[70]

In 2000 Riggs helped to create a
Bahamas-registered shell company, Otong SA, for the president using the
confidential address of “The Presidential Palace, Malabo.” On two
occasions Riggs accepted without due diligence $3 million in cash deposits for
this account.[71] According to the Senate investigation report, from 2000 to 2002
Riggs accepted a total of $13 million in cash—often packaged in
“unopened plastic-wrapped bundles” and carried in suitcases by the
Riggs account manager for Equatorial Guinea—“with few questions
asked.”[72]

Government officials in Equatorial Guinea
are required to declare their personal assets before a National Commission for
Ethics. However, efforts by Human Rights Watch in 2003 and 2004 to gain access
to this register failed. Human Rights Watch was told that this information was
“confidential and only for the president to see.”[73]

Riggs was clearly aware of the corruption
in the Equatorial Guinean government, as well as the human rights concerns in
the country. In an internal document produced by the bank for a 2002 loan to
Equatorial Guinea, the following observations show how the bank saw the
country:

The World Bank and IMF are under pressure
to engage with Equatorial Guinea.... Although the government recently announced
a program to improve transparency and accountability, any changes are unlikely
to meet IMF criteria. With the establishment of a state oil company, GE Petrol,
later in 2001, management of the oil sector may even become more opaque, and
standards of governance are likely to remain poor.... The government cash-flow
situation improved considerably during 1999-2000 reflecting growing oil
revenue, but fiscal policy performance continued to weaken, as evidenced by the
lack of control over government financial operations.... The [EG] President has
at least partly overcome US State Department concerns about human rights abuse
and corruption.... Allegations of human rights abuses followed the announcement
of the coup in March have been well documented, and have elicited international
condemnation. However, any hesitancy on part of the US or European countries
towards Equatorial Guinea will be temporary, due to the rising importance of
the oil sector.... Human rights have been an endemic problem in Equatorial
Guinea. The Human Rights Commission voted to keep Equatorial Guinea under
scrutiny; however, it is believed that the government’s increasing
capacity to buy diplomatic influence has caused several African countries to
insist on softening the criticism.[74]

In January 2005 Riggs Bank pleaded guilty
to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act by hiding millions of dollars controlled
by senior officials from Equatorial Guinea (as well as funds controlled by
Chilean former president Augusto Pinochet). In addition to agreeing to pay a
$16 million fine, the bank agreed to five years’
probation and to cooperate in ongoing investigations of former Riggs officers.[75] The fine is the largest ever assessed under the Bank Secrecy Act.
This criminal penalty came on top of an earlier $25 million civil fine levied
by the Office of the Comptroller for the Currency in May 2004 for Riggs
Bank’s handling of accounts held by diplomats and officials of Equatorial
Guinea and Saudi Arabia.[76] The US Federal Reserve also issued a cease and desist order
requiring Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, to
improve its oversight of the bank, internal controls, and risk management.[77]
On April 27, 2005, the Federal Reserve approved the acquisition of Riggs
National Corporation by PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., for some $643
million.[78] The bank’s embassy and international banking operations were
shut down.[79]

On June 3, 2005, federal prosecutors
indicted Simon Kareri, a former Riggs Bank vice president, and his wife on
charges of bank fraud, money laundering, wire fraud, and conspiracy, among
others, in connection with his alleged embezzlement of funds from Equatoguinean
accounts.[80] Kareri was the manager of the African and Caribbean division of
Riggs Bank’s international and embassy banking department until he was
fired in January 2004; he had been responsible for the Equatorial Guinea
accounts. According to the government of Equatorial Guinea, “The transfer
of one million US dollars from the Equatorial Guinea account to Mr.
Kareri’s account is explained as payment to the construction company
which built the industrial agricultural conservation plant in the Equatorial
Guinean city of Bata.”[81] In November 2006 Simon Kareri pleaded guilty on fourteen counts,
including five counts of bank fraud and six counts of money laundering.[82] He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment on each count.[83] His wife pleaded guilty on seven counts, including three counts of
money laundering; she was sentenced to twenty-one months of supervised release.[84] They jointly paid $631,000 in restitution.[85]

Companies owned by government
officials and the role of multinational oil companies

The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations report detailed how the pervasive role of companies controlled
by members of the ruling family or their close associates in the
country’s economy is another manifestation of suspect practices by
government officials, their family members, or close associates. Regarding the
Riggs Bank scandal the report concluded, among other things, that “[o]il
companies operating in Equatorial Guinea may have contributed to corrupt
practices by making substantial payments to, or entering into business ventures
with, individual Equatorial Guinea officials, their family members, or entities
they control, with minimal public disclosure of their actions.”[86]

The subcommittee’s investigation
showed that Chevron; CMS Energy Corporation, whose Equatorial Guinea interests
were purchased by Marathon in 2002; Devon Energy Corporation, which sold its
assets to GEPetrol in 2008; ExxonMobil; Triton Energy Corporation, which was
acquired in 2001 by Amerada Hess Corporation (now Hess Corporation); and Vanco
all were engaged in such activities.

The records examined by the subcommittee
showed that most of the payments made by these oil companies went to Equatorial
Guinean government accounts, including those at Riggs Bank. They also showed
that Marathon made a number of payments to Equatorial Guinea’s accounts
other than the oil account, while Hess made some 33 different transfers to
Equatorial Guinean government vendors.[87] According to the report, “[s]ome oil companies have also
entered into business ventures with Equatorial Guinean officials, members of
their families, or ventures they control.”[88]

Due to the pervasive role of the government
and individuals with ties to government officials and their family members in
the country’s economy, oil companies doing business in Equatorial Guinea
often end up entering into a variety of business agreements and relationships
which result in their contributing substantially to the Equatorial Guinean
government’s funds. These relationships include various joint ventures,
the lease or purchase of land, the purchase of security services, and
contributions to scholarships for Equatorial Guinean nationals, usually awarded
to relatives of government officials.

Lease and purchase of land

Between March 19, 1996, and June 22, 2001,
ExxonMobil’s Equatorial Guinea subsidiary, Mobil Equatorial Guinea, Inc.
(MEGI), leased the buildings and land that comprise the “Abayak
Compound” directly from President Obiang’s wife. After June 22,
2001, MEGI continued to lease the property through Abayak S.A., a company owned
by President Obiang and actively managed and administered by his wife. This
relationship continues.[89]

Marathon paid the president over $2 million
for the purchase of two plots of land at Punta Europa, a peninsula on the
northwest corner of Bioko Island that is the closest point to the offshore Alba
field. The purchases—one valuing $1.4 million—were negotiated
through Abayak S.A., which was acting as the agent of President Obiang.[90] In a letter to Human Rights Watch on April 28, 2009, Marathon
stated that when it acquired CMS Energy’s stake in the Alba field in
2002, Marathon made significant investments that

required the construction of additional plants and
therefore the acquisition of additional land. From every logistical,
engineering, operational, economic and other reasonable perspectives, Marathon
and its partners had no alternative than to build new plants adjacent to the
existing facilities [on Punta Europa]. President Obiang had the title of the
record to the Punta Europa land, having acquired it in 1984, long before any
land was acquired for oil and gas operations.... Marathon negotiated a price of
approximately $2,900 an acre which was within a price [sic] within the market
price indicated by its analysis. The acquisition was then completed through an
expropriation process which included the opportunity for public comment,
including the public identification of the seller and purchaser of the
property.[91]

Since the release of the Senate report in
2004, Marathon and its partners have not purchased any additional land in Equatorial
Guinea.[92]

According to the Senate investigation
report, “Amerada Hess ... paid Equatorial Guinea officials and their
relatives nearly $1 million for building leases.”[93] In 2000 Triton was involved in negotiating and leasing one such
property from a 14-year-old boy, a relative of President Obiang. Triton and
subsequently Amerada Hess paid the boy and his mother (his representative)
$445,800 under the lease.[94] In a letter dated May 5, 2009, from Hess to Human Rights Watch,
Hess stated that they no longer retain this lease. However, Hess disclosed that
it still maintains one lease inherited from Triton with a person who has since
been appointed minister of foreign affairs; according to Hess, “This
lease is believed to be at a fair market rate and is not material to our
activities.”[95]

Security services

ExxonMobil and Amerada Hess told the subcommittee
that they purchase their security services through Sociedad Nacional de
Vigilancia (Sonavi), a company owned by the president’s brother, Armengol
Ondo Nguema, as Sonavi has a monopoly on security services in Equatorial
Guinea.[96] Four other oil companies told the subcommittee that they were able
to shop around for their security services.[97]

Hess paid approximately $300,500 to Sonavi
between January 2000 and May 2004.[98] Since moving its operations to Bata in 2004, Hess has had no
further business relationship with Sonavi.[99] As far as Human Rights Watch is aware, ExxonMobil continues
its relationship with Sonavi, arguing that this relationship is “at
arm’s length and that payments had been consistent with market
rates.”[100] From August 1997 to October 2000 an ExxonMobil subsidiary paid
Sonavi $683,900 for security services; between 2000 and 2003, another
ExxonMobil entity paid Sonavi $26,400 for security.[101]

Scholarships

According to the subcommittee
investigation, six oil companies made significant payments—in excess of
$4 million—for the expenses incurred by more than 100 Equatoguinean
students seeking education outside the country.[102] In some cases, payments to an Equatorial Guinean government account
for training of Equatoguinean citizens were required by clauses within the
production sharing contracts (PSCs) the companies signed. According to the
investigation’s report, “Many and perhaps all of these students
were the children or relatives of EG officials, but the evidence is unclear
regarding the extent to which each of the oil companies was aware of the
students’ family status.”[103] In
letters to all six oil companies mentioned in the Senate report, Human Rights
Watch inquired about the current nature of the payments made to support
Equatoguinean student training. Of the five companies that have responded at
this writing, no company specified funding students who were relatives of
Equatoguinean government officials.

Between 2001 and 2004
Chevron provided $150,000 each year for student training expenses.[104] According to a letter dated June 3, 2009, from Chevron to Human
Rights Watch, information contained in PSCs regarding payments for expenses
incurred by Equatoguinean students seeking training or education is
“confidential.”[105]

ExxonMobil did not provide
the subcommittee with information on any scholarship payments made but Riggs
documents stated that along with Marathon it funded between 28 and 35
Equatoguinean students in 2003.[106]

Vanco made two payments of
$158,000 between 2000 and 2001, and two payments exceeding $190,000 between
2002 and 2003, for student training.[107]

From mid-2003 through
mid-2008, the period Devon Energy operated in Equatorial Guinea, Devon
supported the educational training of Equatoguinean students in three ways:

To fulfil a clause in Devon’s
PSC with the Equatorial Guinean government, Devon made lump-sum payments of
$200,000 per year toward Equatoguinean educational training. These payments,
which were made directly to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, began in 2003
with a pro-rated payment of $150,000 and ended in 2007.[108]

Between 2004 and 2007,
Devon donated $125,000 per year to GEGEO, a program administered by the
University of South Carolina that provides support to students at the
University of Equatorial Guinea.[109]

According to Devon,
“In 2008, Devon was required, under the EG Hydrocarbon Law and an
agreement between the government of EG and its PSC operators (including Devon),
to pay approximately $350,000 to support a training program administered by ...
an affiliate of Marathon Oil Corporation.”[110]

Hess between 2001 and 2003
made payments totalling $1.9 million for Equatoguinean students studying in the
US and Canada.[111]In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Hess wrote that they currently
provide “significant financial support for a comprehensive education
program in EG, managed by the Academy for Educational Development. This is a
multi-year, $40 million dollar program which has established 40 model schools,
trained over 1,100 teachers, and established new course work curricula
throughout the country.”[112]Hess also selects and sponsors four Equatoguinean students to study
in the United States. According to Hess, “Funding for these programs is
given voluntarily by Hess as part of our social responsibility program and is
outside of the contractual obligations in our PSCs.”[113]

According to the Senate
report, “Marathon is obligated under its PSCs to pay almost $300,000 per
year for Equatorial Guinean student training.”[114] In 2002 Marathon paid $150,000 to the Equatorial Guinea student
account at Riggs, and it expected to make $590,000 in similar payments for its
2003 and 2004 obligations.[115]In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Marathon stated that it
“has made large investments in the training of Equatoguineans; some in
conjunction with the government, but mostly on our own.”[116] Such investments include vocational training programs and support
for Equatoguinean employees to study at universities in the United States, as
well as participating in the development of a National Institute of Technology
for the Hydrocarbons sector.[117]

Joint business ventures

The subcommittee investigation also found a
few instances where oil companies entered into business ventures with companies
controlled by senior Equatorial Guinean officials or their families.

Although the Senate report asserted that
Marathon had entered into two joint ventures with Guinea Equatorial Oil
and Gas Marketing, Ltd. (GEOGAM), a state-owned company established in 1996
that is 25 percent owned by the Equatorial Guinea government and 75
percent owned by Abayak S.A., the company owned by President Obiang,
Marathon stated in a letter to Human Rights Watch that it never had a
business relationship with GEOGAM. According to Marathon, upon learning
GEOGAM was a partner in two joint ventures Marathon inherited from CMS
Energy and receiving documentation that GEOGAM was in fact partially owned
by Abayak, Marathon insisted that GEOGAM’s interests in the two
projects be transferred to a “wholly-owned government entity.”[118]

Further, Marathon told the subcommittee
that it obtained workers through APEGESA, an Equatoguinean company that
was partially owned at the time by Juan Olo, a prominent Equatoguinean
figure closely connected to the president.[119] According to the report, “Marathon reimburses APEGESA
for the compensation paid to the workers and also pays a fee of
approximately 20 percent of the salaries of the workers. Since 2002
Marathon has paid APEGESA about $7.5 million.”[120] In a letter from Marathon to Human Rights Watch, Marathon
stated that Juan Olo had “transferred his interest in APEGESA in
2005.... [and that] our contract with APEGESA, which we inherited from
CMS, is clearly a market-based, arms-length arrangement.”[121]

The US Securities and
Exchange Commission inquiry

The US Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) also embarked upon an investigation to assess whether US companies
operating in Equatorial Guinea had broken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
(FCPA) of 1977. Under the act, US companies can do business with foreign
government officials but are not allowed to provide anything of value to anyone
who can misuse a position of power to help them obtain or retain business.

Letters from the SEC to US oil companies
Hess, Marathon, and Chevron were received in mid-July 2004. ExxonMobil and
Devon received letters in early August 2004. All the companies have denied any
wrongdoing and say they have cooperated fully with the SEC inquiry.[123] Human Rights Watch inquired about the current status of the SEC
investigation in letters sent in early 2009 to Hess, Marathon, Chevron,
ExxonMobil, and Devon. Marathon, Hess, and Devon have been informed by the SEC
that they are no longer subject to any ongoing investigation on Equatorial
Guinea,[124] while ExxonMobil stated that “[t]here has been no allegation
or charge by any enforcement authority of any illegal activity by ExxonMobil or
its affiliates in EG.”[125] According to Chevron, its “policy is not to discuss
governmental inquiries.”[126] At this writing, the SEC has not issued any findings related to
this investigation.

Multinational oil companies and FCPA compliance

Many of the oil companies that responded
to Human Rights Watch’s request for information about their current
business dealings with Equatoguinean government officials or entities they
control detailed myriad practices to ensure compliance with the FCPA. These
practices include holding in-country seminars on the FCPA, performing
internal and external annual audits of FCPA compliance, adopting company
anti-corruption compliance guidelines, and providing for management accountability
and disciplinary action for non-compliance.[127]
Human Rights Watch welcomes these efforts and believes they comprise a key
step toward combating corruption.

However, as pointed out by ExxonMobil in
a letter to Human Rights Watch, there are “practical realities”
to doing business in a country in which “[m]any businesses have some
family relations with a government official, and virtually all government
officials have some business interests of their own, or through a close
relative.”[128]
Given these “practical realities,” it is imperative that
government law enforcement agencies act aggressively to expose and curtail
corruption. In particular, the US government should provide more
resources to the SEC and the Department of Justice to aggressively investigate
violations of the FCPA, in order to ensure that companies do not become part
of the cycle of corruption that plagues so many resource-rich countries.

Indications
of corruption by President Obiang’s eldest son

Perhaps the most brazen and troubling examples
of corruption are repeated instances involving the president’s eldest
son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang, whose globetrotting and extravagant lifestyle is
filled with purchases of multimillion-dollar houses and exotic sports cars
throughout the world. Teodorin Obiang’s official title is minister of
forestry, and from that position he earns a salary equivalent to approximately
$4,000 per month.[129] Nonetheless, Teodorin Obiang has been able to buy mansions in
Los Angeles and Cape Town, and there have been press reports that he has
purchased homes in Buenos Aires and Paris as well.[130]

From 1998 to 2006 Teodorin Obiang owned a
15,000 square foot property on a 16-acre estate at the Serra Retreat in Malibu,
Los Angeles, through his company Sweetwater Mesa LLC.[131] In April 2006 he transferred ownership of this property to a second
company of his, Sweetwater Malibu LLC. Incorporation records filed at the time
indicated that the house was worth some $35 million.[132] According to Forbes Magazine this was the sixth most-expensive
sale of a private house in the United States in 2006.[133]

In March and April 2004 Teodorin Obiang
purchased two luxury homes in Cape Town worth a total of $7 million[134] and also spent approximately 10.2 million rand (approximately $1.45
million) on three luxury cars.[135] The purchase of the Cape Town houses came to light because George
Ehlers, owner of South African construction firm Engineering Design and
Construction Company, claims that he is owed nearly $7.8 million for a breach
of contract to build an airport on the island of Annobon for the Equatorial
Guinea government.[136] In order to recoup the funds, Ehlers identified these assets in
South Africa and has been trying to gain ownership of the two mansions as
collateral.[137] Elhers secured an attachment order from the Cape Town High Court in
February 2006 for the properties, and this case has now gone to appeal.[138] At this writing, the case is ongoing.

Ehlers claims that Teodorin Obiang could
not have afforded the houses on his minister’s salary of $4,000 per month,
and therefore they must have been purchased with illicitly obtained government
funds. In 2006 Teodorin Obiang filed a notarized affidavit in which he affirmed
that the property is his and not the Equatorial Guinea government’s and,
therefore, could not be seized as payment for government debts. In his
affidavit, he provided a disturbing explanation of how he obtained the funds to
purchase these houses and vehicles:

Cabinet Ministers and public servants in
Equatorial Guinea are by law allowed to owe [sic] companies that, in consortium
with a foreign company, can bid for government contracts and should the company
be successful, then what percentage of the total cost of the contract the
company gets, will depend on the terms negotiated between the parties.

But, in any event, it means that a cabinet
minister ends up with a sizeable part of the contract price in his bank
account.

It is in the context, therefore, of the
law of Equatorial Guinea that my owning a company should be viewed by this
Court, and not in terms of the South African law.[139]

Teodorin Obiang also noted that he did not
want his name to appear on the Cape Town property deeds because he “did
not wish my names to be associated with the properties in any way.... I
insisted on this because I did not want the newsmakers, journalists, and
photographers to know where I lived in Cape Town, for the simple reason that I
did not wish to be pestered by photographers, etc., invading my privacy
whenever I was in Cape Town.”[140]

Government of Equatorial Guinea’s
Response to Corruption Allegations

The government of Equatorial Guinea’s
responses to allegations of corruption and mismanagement are in general
characterized by the same denials and attempts to limit public access to
information that Teodorin Obiang exhibited in the above-mentioned case in South
Africa. Government officials deny the involvement of personal interests in the
management of government finances, launch counter-attacks against those
levelling allegations, and persecute those in the press who attempt to get to
the bottom of these allegations.

The Equatorial Guinea government’s
handling of the Riggs Bank investigation was indicative of this general
approach. The Equatorial Guinea government was not caught unaware by the
subcommittee inquiry. On February 23, 2004, Riggs officials met in Washington,
DC, with President Obiang and other officials to discuss their accounts and
certain transactions. Riggs subsequently advised the Equatorial Guinea
government that the bank had decided to close the accounts. They were closed in
June and July 2004, and the balances were transferred to the Bank of Central
African States. According to the government, the Riggs deposits were
“only transitory accounts meant to deal with local constraints and speed
up payments of foreign oil companies to the Treasury of Equatorial
Guinea.”[141]

The government responded to the controversy
in July by admitting that “[t]he Equatorial Guinea Treasury, as an
official institution of the state, holds an account at Riggs Bank in Washington
to facilitate operations with various oil companies which operate in the
country.”[142] A government spokesperson added, “The investigation that led
the American Senate to Riggs Bank has nothing to do with our government nor our
dignitaries ... consequently, there is no problem between the state of
Equatorial Guinea, the Senate, and the Congress and the United States of
America.”[143] In an interview in June 2005 President Obiang claimed that the
Riggs issue “was the result of lobbying work by the mercenaries to
undermine the legitimate government of Equatorial Guinea.”[144]

The sensitivity of the Riggs issue for the
government was evident through its handling of the affair at home. On May 12,
2004, a government minister threatened to imprison the members of an Australian
television news crew from that country’s 60 Minutes television
program, who were investigating the allocation of Equatorial Guinean oil
revenues, unless they left the country. At the airport, the director of
national security supervised a search of the team’s baggage and
confiscated their computer memory cards.[145] On July 22, 2004, Information Minister Alfonso Nsue Mokuy announced
that his government would file “criminal and civil suits” against
“the foreign press in general, and the Spanish press and television
service in particular, for tendentious comments and the manipulation of the
truth on the pretext of broadcasting” about the links between President
Obiang and Riggs Bank.[146] He also announced that the government would sue Riggs for
“the harm done to leading people in the country,” adding that
“[n]obody says anywhere that the state treasury’s account with
Riggs was manipulated by personal or private interests.”[147]

Beyond their response to the Riggs Bank
scandal, the Equatorial Guinean government also released a report in 2004
refuting allegations of oil revenue misappropriation.[148] Throughout that year and in years following, the government has
been very active in restricting press freedoms to cover the oil industry in the
country or to look into allegations of corruption therein. In July 2004 the
government confiscated digital satellite equipment from Spanish news agencies
in Malabo because of their live broadcasting of features about government
corruption.[149] The following October Peter Maass, a foreign author doing
research for a book on the oil industry in Africa, who was also on assignment
for Mother Jones magazine, was given 15 minutes notice to pack his bags
and leave the country. Maass was deported to Cameroon for “talking to
people of concern to the government and actions not coherent with his stated
purpose,”[150] and for being—in Maass’s words—a “spy who
had met the enemy—the Spanish ambassador.”[151] He eventually received a verbal official apology about his
deportation from the president via the US embassy and was invited back.[152]

John Ghazvinian, another foreign journalist
and author who was in Malabo in February 2005 researching a book on oil in the
Gulf of Guinea, was advised to leave the country or risk unspecified
consequences after being threatened by a government official on February 9 for
refusing to pay a bribe. After receiving advice from locals as well as from the
US consul, Ghazvinian decided to leave the country on February 11.[153]

(Issues of media freedom and freedom of
information in Equatorial Guinea are discussed more broadly in Chapter V.)

Financial Mismanagement
and Lack of Transparency

The government of Equatorial Guinea has not only failed to
curb the endemic corruption, but it has also consistently mismanaged its oil
revenue wealth, so that even money that has not been siphoned off by corrupt
officials renders little benefit to Equatoguinean citizens. Moreover, Human
Rights Watch believes that the degree to which citizens will benefit from
natural resource revenues depends, in part, upon the level of transparency
surrounding such revenues and the degree to which resource-rich governments are
accountable for the allocation and spending of those revenues. The citizens of
Equatorial Guinea have not benefited commensurate to the levels of oil revenue
flowing into their country. This is partially because the Equatoguinean
government refuses to operate transparently in a manner that would allow
citizens to hold it accountable for its fiscal policies.

Financial mismanagement
in the oil sector

One of the consequences of Equatorial Guinea’s rapid
economic growth is a decreased sense of “urgency for macroeconomic and
structural reforms.”[154] In
the 1990s a marked increase in spending led to budget deficits and debt; while
this trend has been reversed in recent years, the government of Equatorial
Guinea still faces a major challenge in implementing reforms to manage the
country’s resources “in a manner that is efficient, transparent,
and cognizant of the need to establish a solid foundation for future
generations.”[155]

Production-sharing contracts and signature bonus payments

The Equatoguinean government earns money from corporate
investment in Equatorial Guinea’s oil fields primarily through production
sharing contracts—contracts signed between the government and oil
companies that specify the fees and taxes the companies have to pay to the
government of Equatorial Guinea—and bonus payments. However, the
government “take” of the oil revenue, as set forth in these
contracts, is much lower than in neighboring oil-rich countries: the World Bank
estimated in 2003 that Equatorial Guinea receives only 15 to 40 percent of oil
revenues under its agreements, compared to a typical government take of 45 to
90 percent in other sub-Saharan African countries.[156]

Contracts for two of the largest oil concessions in
Equatorial Guinea, the Alba and Zafiro fields, were negotiated in 1990 and
1992, respectively, without outside consultation from the World Bank.[157]
The contracts were extremely favorable to the oil companies, both because of
the actual financial terms of the agreement and because the government, given
its limited institutional capacity, had trouble monitoring the complicated
financial transactions required by the terms of the contract.[158]
In fact, the government would later claim to find $88 million in payment
discrepancies from companies, including ExxonMobil, between 1996 and 2001.[159]
The World Bank encouraged the Equatoguinean government to renegotiate both
contracts soon after signing in order to obtain a more favorable take; the
government, however, did not do so.[160] The
Bank concluded that, at the time, the government had “a preference for
immediate cash over long-term financial optimization (giving priority to
negotiating advances on future oil revenues),”[161]
a policy the International Monetary Fund encouraged the government to refrain
from in 2001.[162]

There have been successive attempts to rectify this. A new
“model” production sharing contract was drafted in 1998 to give the
Equatoguinean government a larger portion of oil revenues; however, the new
contracts were still very generous, according to regional standards, to
companies. Equatorial Guinea’s oil petroleum law 1/2001 introduced a
sliding-scale royalty rate for oil production of between 12 and 18 percent, up
from previous royalty rates of between 10 and 16 percent.[163]
However, government officials confirmed to Human Rights Watch in 2003 that
Equatorial Guinea generally still received less money under its contracts than
other countries.[164] In
2006 the government introduced a new law to again increase the
government’s share of oil profits, which brings Equatorial Guinea’s
take more into line with that of other oil-producing countries in the region,[165]
but most of the provisions of the new law are not retroactive: they do not
change the fiscal terms of the existing contracts.[166]

The fiscal terms of existing contracts are, to a certain
extent, unclear (according to officials at the Ministry of Mines, Industry and
Energy, PSCs are confidential).[167]
Signature bonus payments—cash payments from oil companies in exchange for
lucrative oil concessions[168]—are
small, often less than $1 million, although Human Rights Watch is aware of one
signature bonus concession package that granted the Equatoguinean government
use of an aircraft for presidential activities.[169]
In contrast, in 2004 Chevron reported paying $123 million with its partners for
a block in the São Tomé e Príncipe/Nigeria Joint
Development Zone adjacent to Equatorial Guinea,[170]
while in countries like Angola, companies have paid hundreds of millions of
dollars in individual signature bonus payments. In Equatorial Guinea, the
amount of the bonus payments is kept confidential.[171]

IMF reports on Equatorial Guinea’s economic policies

The IMF was troubled by the management of oil revenues in
Equatorial Guinea and issued a strongly worded critique in August 2001
following its annual Article IV consultations with the government on the
implementation of Equatorial Guinea’s economic policies. In the report,
the IMF noted that there was a “continued weakness in economic policy
performance, macroeconomic management, and governance” and a
“serious lack of fiscal discipline and transparency.”[172]
The IMF also urged the authorities to refrain from extra-budgetary spending
financed against future oil revenue at high interest rates, and noted that the
oil companies had been withdrawing government oil funds at source to repay
these advances.[173] It
reported,

Although undertakings were reached with
the authorities to channel all government oil revenue into a single account at
the BEAC at the time of the 1999 Article IV consultation, oil companies
continue to pay royalties, bonuses, and other oil revenue into government
accounts held abroad. Moreover, the oil companies have been withholding
government oil revenue at source to repay advances extended in previous years.
As a result, actual oil revenue collection rates have remained very low by
international standards.[174]

The full IMF report was never made public, as it was even
more explicit than the summary.[175]

No Article IV consultations with the IMF occurred in
Equatorial Guinea in 2002 due to presidential elections and a restructuring of
key ministries. A further round of consultations took place between July 29 and
August 12, 2003, after which Equatorial Guinea’s then-Prime Minister
Cádido Muatetema Rivas told Human Rights Watch that “[w]e have
asked the IMF to publish the Article IV staff report for their 2003
consultations with us.”[176] Since
then, the Article IV staff reports on consultations with Equatorial Guinea have
been published on a 12-month cycle (for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008). All
the missions and their reports have emphasized the need for greater
transparency in resource management and improved public accounting procedures.
They have also called for a halt to borrowing against future oil revenues,
containment of non-priority expenditures, and increased spending on education,
health, and infrastructure.[177]

Efforts to improve
transparency in the oil sector

The lack of transparency regarding oil revenue in Equatorial
Guinea has been an issue of concern for human rights groups, international
financial institutions, and some governments for a number of years. Yet efforts
to improve reporting and accounting have been met with resistance from the
Equatorial Guinean government and have resulted in few meaningful positive
developments.

The first National Economic Conference in Equatorial Guinea,
held in September 1997, touched upon transparency in oil revenue spending. The
conference recommended that an independent agency, accountable to parliament,
be established to audit and expose corruption cases and other irregularities;
the recommendation was never acted upon.[178] A
follow-up meeting to evaluate government economic strategy was held in 1999, at
which a program for good governance was drawn up in consultation with the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The program envisaged a
three-year, multimillion-dollar joint UNDP and Equatoguinean social project
beginning in September 2000 that was to include ambitious plans for increased
transparency of the oil sector and institutional capacity building for those
administrative structures capable of managing oil revenues. As with the 1997
initiative, this good governance plan never made it off the paper.[179]
According to UN officials the government reacted negatively to the plan because
it advocated revenue transparency, and pulled out.[180]

By 2003, however, encouraged by the IMF and oil companies
such as Marathon, then-Prime Minister Rivas signaled to Human Rights Watch that
“[w]e have nothing to fear from transparency.... From now on we will show
the world that we are a leader in this transparency field.”[181]
Although Equatorial Guinea has taken steps in the past five years to improve
revenue transparency—including by deciding in 2004 to participate in the
UK-sponsored Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (see below) and
allowing the release of an IMF fiscal transparency report on the observance of
standards and codes in 2005—progress to date has been slow.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

EITI is a voluntary initiative aimed at encouraging oil and
mining companies to publish the payments they make to the governments of
developing world countries in which they operate. Human Rights Watch has
participated in EITI’s development as well as that of the complementary,
NGO-led Publish What You Pay (PWYP) campaign.[182]

Like other international initiatives, EITI suffers from
inherent limitations, in that it currently extends only to enhancing the
transparency of government income. The value of that alone is tremendous, but
EITI does little to enhance the transparency of government
expenditures—of particular importance in Equatorial Guinea given the
abysmal socioeconomic indicators and the lack of information about government
spending.[183]

In September 2004 the government of Equatorial Guinea
announced its intention to implement EITI and requested technical assistance
from the World Bank to do so.[184]
However, Equatorial Guinea has been slow in its implementation of the EITI
protocols. In 2005 the government announced that its first EITI compliance
report would be published in the fourth quarter of 2005; to date, this report
has not been published.[185] The
IMF stated in its 2006 Article IV consultation that “[t]he momentum
supporting the initiative has waned somewhat, and the mission encouraged the
authorities to reinvigorate the process.”[186]
By 2007 the IMF had become more pointed in criticizing the government’s
implementation of EITI, noting in its country report from that year that
Equatorial Guinea’s implementation of EITI had “stalled.”[187]
It reported that “transparency and accountability are particularly
weak” and that “[a]lthough Equatorial Guinea was one of the first
countries to publicly commit to the EITI, there has been relatively little
progress toward compliance.”[188]

Nonetheless, Equatorial Guinea was accepted as an EITI
candidate country in February 2008 following intensive lobbying by several EITI
members and despite serious reservations by nongovernmental organizations that
are part of EITI.[189] Eight months later, the IMF called Equatorial Guinea’s
progress toward meeting the EITI requirements “slow,” although the
World Bank was expected to assist the Equatorial Guinean government in
producing the first EITI report by mid-2009.[190] It will have until 2010 to come into compliance with EITI’s
standards.[191]

It is unclear whether the government will fully implement
EITI: not only does it have a poor track record but EITI requires that civil
society be allowed to fully participate, and there is little independent and
fully functioning civil society in the country.

IV. Impact of Corruption and Oil Revenue
Mismanagement on Economic and Social Rights in Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea was an extremely poor country in the
decades following its independence from Spain in 1968. In 1991, the year before
any oil production started, the country’s gross domestic product was
approximately US$147 million.[192]
Substantial oil revenues started flowing in 1997. As noted above, the country’s
GDP was estimated at $18.5 billion by 2008—an increase of 5,272 percent
between 1992 and 2008—almost completely from oil revenue.[193]
In 2009, GDP per capita was estimated by the Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU)at a staggering $39,916 dollars in purchasing
power parity (PPP) terms, which is among the highest in the world and on par
with Spain and Italy.[194]

Given Equatorial Guinea’s enormous oil wealth and its
relatively small population of approximately 527,000 people,[195]
the country should be a model of development. In 1991 Equatorial Guinea had
some of the worst socioeconomic indicators in the world, but given the dramatic
growth in GDP it would be reasonable to expect a commensurate improvement in
social indicators. Sadly, that is not the case. According to the United Nations
Development Programme, as of 2009 Equatorial Guinea had the third-largest gap
between its per capita GDP and its Human Development Index (HDI) score, ahead
of only Botswana and South Africa.[196] Life
expectancy is low at 52 years,[197] and
infant mortality is high at 124 deaths per 1,000 live births.[198]
More than 35 percent of Equatorial Guinea’s citizens do not survive past
age 40. Nineteen percent of children under age five are moderately to severely
malnourished,[199] while
only 43 percent of the population uses safe water.[200]
Almost 77 percent of the population falls below the poverty line, while,
according to the UN, levels of severe poverty are on par with those of Haiti.[201]

Inadequate Funding of
Health, Education, and Social Services

In Equatorial Guinea, the evidence of a link between
financial mismanagement and underfunding of essential social services is so
stark that it compels the conclusion that funds have been needlessly diverted
away from services and institutions critical to the fulfillment of
Equatoguineans’ economic and social rights. A comparison between
Equatorial Guinea’s pre-oil social indicators and its most recent ones
provides telling evidence of the government’s underinvestment in its own
population’s well-being and its failure to adequately utilize the massive
amount of revenue the country has earned as a result of its oil boom. In the
decade since oil revenues started to come in, the population remained
relatively stable, and social indicators did not markedly improve. In 1991,
prior to the onset of oil production, the UNDP ranked the country 130 out of
160 countries in the HDI.[202] In
2008 Equatorial Guinea ranked 115out of 177 countries in the HDI.[203]
The country’s 2008 ranking also represented a decline from prior years;
in 2004 it was ranked 109 in the HDI. These rankings are worrisome on their
own, but are especially troubling given the country’s high per capita
GDP.

According to the IMF, government expenditures on health from
1992 to 1996 averaged 6.43 percent of total outlays.[204]
But between 1997—when oil revenues started flowing—and 2002
government expenditure on health declined to an average of 1.23 percent.[205]
A similar downward trend occurred in government spending on education during
the same period. Education expenditures averaged 6.79 percent of total outlays
from 1992 to 1996, while from 1997 to 2002 the average dropped to only 1.67
percent.[206] A year
later, in 2003, the US Department of State was critical of Equatorial
Guinea’s spending on social services, saying that “[t]here is
little evidence that the country’s oil wealth is being devoted to the
public good.”[207]

As of 2005, the latest year for which this information is
available, estimates of government spending on health and education as
percentages of GDP had barely changed or, in some cases, had decreased. The
World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that as of 2005 the government spent
1.6 percent of GDP, or $114 million, on health.[208]
The World Bank, meanwhile, estimated that government spending on education as
of 2005 was only 0.6 percent of GDP, or approximately $43 million.[209]
The IMF noted in 2005 that “[t]he country’s social indicators have
not improved” commensurate to the growth in per capita GDP,[210]
while the World Bank reported that although “[o]il discoveries and rapid
expansion of oil exports have caused a striking improvement in economic
indicators, there has been no impact on the country’s dismal social
indicators.”[211]

In 2004 the government launched a Public Investment Program
(PIP) that was intended for investments in infrastructure, public
administration, and other “productive” activities. The original
budget allocated approximately $1.2 billion for social spending, including
health, education, and housing, out of a total PIP budget of about $3.2 billion
from 2005 to 2007.[212]
However, while the actual total PIP spending was 36 percent greater ($4.4
billion) than the budgeted total, actual social spending declined by 43
percent—only $693 million was used for social spending from 2005 to 2007.
Moreover, only 15 percent of the total budget was actually spent on social
projects, a figure the IMF termed “low.”[213]

The Millennium Development Goals

In
addition to underfunding essential social services, another indication of the
Equatoguinean government’s neglect of their responsibilities to their
people is their failure to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The MDGs
were agreed upon by 189 governments and multilateral institutions at the UN
Millennium Summit in September 2000. They are a set of eight anti-poverty
goals participating countries aim to achieve globally by 2015: to halve
extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; empower
women and promote gender equality; reduce under-5 mortality rates by
two-thirds; reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters; reverse the spread
of diseases such as HIV/Aids and malaria; ensure environmental sustainability
including access to safe water; and create a global partnership including
aid, trade, and debt relief targets.[214]

Governments
are supposed to implement the MDGs at the national level, keep statistics on
them, and issue progress reports in order to monitor their implementation.
The MDGs are also a key way for multilateral institutions, donors, and others
to monitor a government’s commitment to alleviating poverty in its
country as well as progressively realizing economic and social rights.

The
government of Equatorial Guinea seems to have done, at worst, little to
implement the MDGs and, at best, little to monitor implementation. Equatorial
Guinea only has data for 37 of the 48 indicators under the MDGs, covering the
period from 1990 to 2008.[215]
Of those 37 indicators, not one has a complete set of data. According to the
UN, “Ongoing efforts to monitor progress in attaining the MDGs have
been hampered by the fact that in most cases no trustworthy and up-to-date
information is available to provide objective documentation of results
reported ... ”[216]

While the
UN believes the available data indicate that MDG goals are “attainable,”
a look at the incomplete data for four key mortality and health indicators
presents a troubling picture of the country’s progress toward the MDGs.

The annual
number of deaths among both infants and children under five in Equatorial
Guinea has actually increased between 1990 and 2007; the infant mortality
rate rose from 103 deaths per 1,000 in 1990 to 124 deaths per 1,000 in 2007,
while the under-five mortality rate increased from 170 per 1,000 in 1990 to
206 per 1,000 in 2007.[217]
These are the fourth highest infant and under-five mortality rates in the
world, on both measures behind Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and Chad, all of
which have experienced major conflict in the past 10 years and none of which
have the natural resource wealth of Equatorial Guinea.[218]

Two health
indicators also show a worsening of conditions. Measles immunization rates
for children under 12 months declined from 88 percent in 1990 to 51 percent
in 2006. The incidence of tuberculosis increased from 102.2 per 100,000
people in 1990 to 255.8 in 2006, an increase of 150 percent.[219]

UNESCO

In a troubling and ironic development
considering the Equatoguinean government’s lack of investment on its own
citizens’ well being, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced the establishment of the UNESCO-Obiang
Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences. The prize
is funded by a $3 million grant from the Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Foundation for
the Preservation of Life and is intended to provide a cash prize of $300,000 to
the annual recipient as well as another $300,000 per year for the
administration of the prize.[220]

The Rights to Health
and Education Under International Law

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights acknowledges that different countries have different levels of resources
available to them and does not unrealistically require countries to immediately
devote more resources than they have to fulfill their obligations. Rather, the
covenant calls upon governments to progressively implement those rights
commensurate with the amount of resources available.

However, gross misallocation of resources to the detriment
of the enjoyment of economic and social rights can constitute a human rights
violation. The unjustified diversion of funds from health services and
facilities is an illustrative example. Article 12 of the ICESCR requires that
states “recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health.” This includes
“provision for the reduction of the stillbirth-rate and of infant
mortality ... prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic,
occupational and other diseases,” and “creation of the conditions
which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of
sickness.”[221]

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
the authoritative interpretive body for the ICESCR, has said that a
“violation of the obligation to fulfill” requirements under article
12 can occur when there is “insufficient expenditure or misallocation of
public resources which results in the non-enjoyment of the right to health by
individuals or groups.”[222] Similarly,
the Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights state that a violation “through the acts of commission” of
the ICESCR can occur if a government engages in the “reduction or
diversion of specific public expenditure, when such reduction or diversion
results in the non-enjoyment of such rights and is not accompanied by adequate
measures to ensure the minimum subsistence rights for everyone.”[223]

Equatorial
Guinea’s Efforts to Fight Poverty

Due to increasing pressure from other governments and
companies, the Equatorial Guinean government admitted that its National
Development Plan for 1997 through 2001, drawn up at the first National Economic
Conference in 1997, did not significantly achieve poverty reduction. Therefore,
the government committed to preparing an interim poverty reduction strategy
paper that could provide a template for a second national conference. With
funding from the US Department of State, a social needs assessment of health
and education was conducted for the government by independent consultants, and
a mechanism to speed up investment in those sectors was proposed.[224]

As a result, the 2005 national budget, passed by parliament
in September 2004, allocated increased expenditures for education. On July 7,
2005, in Malabo, President Obiang launched a Social Development Funding Mechanism
designed to “speed up the execution of social outlays.”[225]
The measure provided for both a comprehensive needs assessment and a mechanism
through which the assessment would be implemented. The mechanism has four
essential elements:

A capacity-building component to improve operations
in relevant ministries (health, education, women’s affairs, and the
environment);

A governing board comprised of President Obiang and
three eminent international experts, mandated to oversee the Fund’s
operation;

A consultative mechanism designed to provide donor
coordination and input to relevant ministries; and

A streamlined disbursement process to ensure
priority projects were funded immediately and transparently.[226]

The program was to be funded wholly by the Equatoguinean
government and subject to yearly audits accessible to the public (though, to
date, these are not available).

In October 2005 parliament approved a government provision
of $1 million in 2006 for this project. President Obiang further endorsed the social
program in Washington, DC, on April 11, 2006, and committed to make a $15
million contribution to the Social Development Fund by signing a memorandum of
understanding with USAID that was valid until December 30, 2008. USAID provided
technical assistance to support implementation of the fund, and Development Alternatives
International, Inc. (DAI), won a competitive bid put out by USAID and agreed to
help manage the team. In-country activities of the Technical Support Project
for Social Investment and Capacity Building in Equatorial Guinea did not begin
until September 11, 2006, with the arrival of the design team, and there were
difficulties such as the government’s desire to have control over the
selection of any long-term appointments.[227] The
project became fully operational only in late 2007.[228]

The government appears to have lost enthusiasm for the
project after its launch and blamed DAI for squandering funds on the design
phase. Although the authorities decided in April 2008 to disburse funds to 10
of 15 projects,[229] as of
October 2008 the government had yet to approve the release of the funds so that
the projects could begin. The IMF calls this delay “worrisome” and
commented in the most recent Article IV consultation that “[c]ontinued
delay would raise questions about whether the government’s commitment [to
poverty alleviation] is genuine.”[230] Thus,
while the US Department of State talks of this project expanding to be worth
“$60 million in the next few years,”[231]
it has yet to come close to realizing its goals. To the knowledge of Human
Rights Watch, neither the USAID program nor the DAI contract have been renewed.

A Second National Economic Development Conference, held in
Bata on November 12 to 14, 2007, was billed to chart Equatorial Guinea’s
development up to 2020. In his opening speech President Obiang stated that
“[t]he elimination of poverty is a two step process because there are two
types of poverty: material poverty and poverty of the spirit [mind].” The
President continued, “The government will focus its attention on the
development of a social infrastructure that will be the envy of the continent
and the world.”[232]

V. The Government’s Record on Civil and
Political Rights

Overview

When asked by a journalist in November 2003
about human rights in Equatorial Guinea, President Obiang replied, “The
international groups need to understand the real situation in the country
because there is no abuse of human rights here. The press is free ... and we
have the Commission for Human Rights.”[233]
In reality, the combined impact of the lack of freedom of the
media, information, assembly, and association, and severe deficits in the rule
of law, has stunted the growth of meaningful civil society in Equatorial Guinea
and has limited the activities of the democratic opposition. There are few
countries in Africa where the deficit in civil society and political opposition
is so pronounced or where the lack of audible independent voices, so critical
for democracy and the rule of law, is so evident.

Human Rights Watch has documented real or
perceived government opponents’ experiences of abuse ranging from
arbitrary arrest and detention without trial to torture, harassment, and
extrajudicial killing. As documented below, Equatoguinean security forces have
also kidnapped opposition politicians in exile in order for them to stand trial
in Equatorial Guinea.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
visited Equatorial Guinea from July 8 t0 13, 2007, at the invitation of the
government. The Working Group visited Malabo and the mainland cities of Bata
and Evinayong. It was able to visit the main prisons and interviewed, in
private and without witnesses, some 200 detainees. The Working Group concluded,

The discovery of large oil reserves points
to the advent of an era of great economic prosperity in the near future.
However, the Working Group confirmed, and it could not be otherwise given the
recent history of the country, that institution-building is still limited, and
the human rights culture has not taken sufficient root in institutions.... The
Working Group considers that there cannot be true development in the country if
the current economic growth does not go hand in hand with institution-building,
the enforcement of the rule of law and the genuine exercise of human rights.”[234]

Areas of concern identified by the Working
Group included its observation that laws and regulations inherited from the
colonial era and dating back to the Franco dictatorship in Spain are still in
effect and enforced. In its report, the Working Group also highlighted the
problems of secret detentions and abduction of opposition politicians in
neighboring countries as being of particular concern.[235]

Manfred Nowak, the UN’s special
rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,
visited Equatorial Guinea for 10 days in November 2008 following an invitation
of the government. Although he commended the government for allowing him to
visit the country, his interim report concluded that torture was rife in the
country and highlighted that:

Political prisoners in
Malabo’s Black Beach Prison have reportedly been held incommunicado for
periods of up to four years;

The justice system is
dysfunctional and lacks independence, and arbitrary detention is common
practice; and

Torture continues to be
used systematically against prisoners who refuse “to collaborate,”
whether accused of political or common crimes, and is used to extract confessions
and to punish detainees.[236]

Nowak recommended a complete overhaul of
the country’s penal and judicial systems based on the rule of law, an
independent judiciary, and effective monitoring mechanisms to combat torture.
He also voiced his fear “about possible reprisals against detainees who
provided testimony to us, in particular at the central police stations of
Malabo and Bata.[237]

The Equatoguinean government issued the
following press statement in response to the interim report in January 2009
defending its commitment to human rights.[238]

Equatorial Guinea
Reaffirms its Commitment to Human Rights

The
government of Equatorial Guinea is gravely concerned with the allegations
made by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment, Mr. Manfred Nowak, during his November 2008
visit to the country. Although the government strongly objects to the manner
in which Mr. Nowak made public his allegations and his conduct during his
stay here, we take serious any allegations made against government officials
and our government. The government of Equatorial Guinea is committed to
reforming our judicial process and looks forward to receiving the official
report from the United Nations so that we might investigate all allegations.

The
UN rapporteur was invited by the government of Equatorial Guinea to assess
the progress made by the government in protecting the rights of its citizens,
including the treatment of individuals in detention facilities, and to
identify areas where further work needs to be done. Over the last several
years, the government of Equatorial Guinea, in cooperation with the United
States government, the European Union and the International Committee of the
Red Cross [ICRC], has undertaken a number of important steps to reform our
judicial process, professionalize our military and police forces, build modern
detention facilities and provide human rights training to security officials.

In
2006 the government passed an anti-torture law and has since passed further
regulations to protect human rights. The government has contributed
significant resources to improve our judicial process and law enforcement
training along with rigorous regulations and inspections. For two years,
MPRI, a US company, has been working in Equatorial Guinea to train a number
of our police forces. The training has included instruction on appropriate
human rights practices, and our government will continue that engagement. The
government is in discussions with MPRI to substantially expand its human
rights training to our security forces, both in content and in personnel to
be trained, in accordance to international standards. The government has also
established an education program for judges to provide them the latest legal
training, and the University of Equatorial Guinea established the
country’s first-ever law school to guarantee a uniform system of legal
education and the rule of law.

Regarding
the report of the special rapporteur, the government of Equatorial Guinea
will establish a committee to work on reviewing the upcoming United Nations
report and its finding and recommend a course of action to be taken by the
government to address any shortcomings. The government will also request
additional assistance from the United States, European Union, United Nations
and others to modernize our judicial process and provide additional human
rights training for our security forces.

The
government of Equatorial Guinea is committed to the rule of law and
protecting human rights. We invite the United Nations to return along with
any organization that is willing to work alongside us to aggressively address
these issues and solve these problems. This is a process that will not see a
solution overnight, but our government remains vigilant in its obligation to
work collaboratively with nations and organizations that will help us build a
stronger and sustainable democracy.

Malabo, 23 of January of 2009 For A Stronger Equatorial
Guinea

Limited progress on human rights,
including criminalization of torture

The Equatoguinean government has made some
very limited progress on civil and political rights in the past decade, as
indicated by the brief visit of the UN special rapporteur on the right to
freedom of opinion and expression in December 2002, the Working Group’s
July 2007 visit, and the visit of the UN special rapporteur on torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in November 2008,[239] and other invitations for international scrutiny, including access
by the ICRC to prisons since 2003 (see below).[240] Periodic amnesties since 2002 have benefitted political prisoners
and other detainees (see below).

On November 2, 2006, a law criminalizing
torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading acts went into effect in
compliance with the government’s obligations as a party to the UN
Convention against Torture. The law, the first of its kind to be approved in
the country, imposes penalties against citizens using torture, including prison
sentences of up to six months and fines of 300,000 Central African francs (US$572)
for those found guilty of using torture. Most importantly, the law also
prohibits the use of evidence in courts that has been obtained through the use
of torture. Some of the cases described below and in the next chapter, as well
as cases such as the October 6, 2007, death in custody of Salvador Ndong Nguema
from injuries inflicted during torture in Evinayong jail several days earlier,[241] indicate that torture and ill-treatment remain serious concerns.

Media
and Information Freedom Heavily Curtailed

Equatorial Guinea was ranked as the fourth
most-censored country in the world (after North Korea, Burma, and Turkmenistan)
by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on May 2, 2006.[242] The Paris-based Reporters without Borders, in their
“Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2008,” ranked Equatorial
Guinea as 156 out of 173 (only Eritrea was worse in Africa).[243] There is no daily newspaper, and shopkeepers need official
permission to sell or distribute international newspapers or news magazines.
With only two non-state-controlled newspapers published in the country, neither
of which can report critically on government activity, a meaningful independent
press is nonexistent.[244]

Freedom of expression is a fundamental
right guaranteed by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The current 1992
press law in Equatorial Guinea authorizes government censorship of all
publications.[245]Self-censorship and fear
are widespread. There has been some liberalization, especially around Malabo
and assisted by the presence of a growing number of international commercial
actors, but the more isolated areas outside Bata in Rio Muni and in the
interior of Bioko Island, which have not been impacted by the oil boom, do not
enjoy the same level of access to information.

Only one newspaper is distributed
regularly, the Malabo-based, but Spanish-printed, monthly La Gaceta. Ebano,
a publication of the Ministry of Information,also appears approximately
twice a month.[246] The editor of the only independent paper, La Opinion,
complained to Human Rights Watch that he could not print his paper, first
because of a lack of newsprint itself, but also because fear of possessing
copies led to a lack of sales.[247] Moreover, only the political opposition, the Convergencia
para la Democracia Social, dares advertise in La
Opinion, meaning it is not commercially viable to print and now only
appears on the internet. The CPDS also irregularly produces a print and
web-based newspaper, La Verdad, but people are also reluctant to be seen
possessing it in public. On June 9, 2005, airport police in Bata seized 200
copies that had been destined for distribution on the mainland.[248]

Aside from the print media there is only
state radio and state television.[249] The one private radio station is Radio Asonga, the popular news and
music station of the president’s son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue.
Teodorin Obiang also operates Television Asonga, a cable TV channel in Bata.
The government generally withholds access to domestic broadcasting from opposition
parties, and broadcasters refer to the opposition negatively in news programs.
In 1987 the government allowed Spain to set up Radio Africa 2000 in Malabo,
but, following pressure from the government, the station stopped broadcasting
in 1993.[250] Most independent news is sourced internationally from the internet
and from cable and satellite broadcasts, particularly reports on Equatorial
Guinea from the Spanish media.[251]

According to the US Department of State in
September 2008,

The government raided the headquarters of
the opposition CPDS in an attempt to confiscate an unlicensed radio transmitter
and forcibly confiscated editions of a semi-regular CPDS publication. In August
[2008], after informing the government in writing of its intention to set up a
radio station ... CPDS had begun testing the equipment. In September the
government ordered the party to cease transmitting, which it did, and alleged
that the CPDS illegally imported broadcast equipment ... without passing
through customs and paying requisite taxes.... The CPDS refused to surrender
the broadcast equipment.... On September 13, 20 members of the security forces
raided the CPDS headquarters in Malabo in an attempt to confiscate the
equipment.[252]

Although the government has allowed the
Equatorial Guinea Press Association (Asociación de la Prensa de Guinea
Ecuatorial, ASOPGE) to hold conferences and events, it has shut it down in the
past.[253] Local journalists are required to register with the Ministry of
Information.[254]

At times, the media has highlighted official
excesses in general terms, such as in La Gaceta in 2003.[255] Public and media criticism of public institutions and public sector
mismanagement, though, is discouraged, and no criticism of the president and
security forces is tolerated.

Restrictions
on Freedom of Assembly

Equatoguinean law provides for the right of
assembly. In practice, however, the Equatoguinean government requires
authorization for any meeting of more than 10 persons that it deems political,
including a meeting in a private home. Furthermore, the political opposition
must inform the government of any meeting it plans to hold, regardless of
location, including in its party buildings. In July 2005 the government allowed
the opposition CPDS to holds its convention, which was attended by foreign
diplomats, in Bata. The CPDS, however, was not allowed to publicize a
conference—part of the convention—that dealt with human rights laws
passed by the government and international bodies. The CPDS was also not
allowed to invite the general public or members of other political parties to
participate in panel discussions.[256]

Imprisonment of Opposition
Politicians and Perceived Government Opponents

Because the Equatoguinean government
restricts access of independent monitoring groups to prisons and fails to
maintain accurate registration lists of prisoners, the exact number of
political prisoners in Equatorial Guinea is hard to ascertain.[257] Amnesty International in 2007 declared 30 individuals to be
prisoners of conscience, while the US Department of State estimates there are
some 39 political prisoners.[258]

Since President Obiang came to power in
August 1979, there have been over a dozen allegations of coup attempts,
including three reported attempts in 2004, one in 2008, and an attack by
unidentified gunmen on the presidential palace in Malabo in February 2009.[259]Although Human Rights Watch
is not in a position to verify whether each individual alleged coup attempt was
actually real, we do note the abuses associated with the government’s
response. The announcement of a foiled or failed plot has usually been followed
by waves of arrests of opposition politicians, military personnel, their
families and friends.[260]

Despite repeated requests by successive UN
special representatives since the 1980s, the Equatoguinean government did not
allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to conduct prison visits
until 2003.[261] In 2004 and 2005 the ICRC was able to visit prisoners, including
some members of opposition parties and persons the government accused of involvement
in coup attempts, and it has made recommendations about prison conditions to
the government, though (as is ICRC practice) they have not released the
recommendations publicly. Since 2006 the ICRC has been able to make periodic
visits to three prisons and twelve jails and has met privately with prisoners,
though it appears that some political prisoners who had been detained without
trial were moved prior to such visits and did not show up on prison rosters. In
2007 the ICRC made regular monthly visits to Malabo central prison, known as
“Black Beach,” where it said 80 prisoners were held.[262] By March 2008, however, the ICRC had suspended its visits to jails
and prisons because, despite its repeated requests, authorities did not meet
the organization’s minimum modalities and conditions required for
international monitoring. It hopes to resume visits in 2009.[263] The Equatoguinean government allowed some diplomatic visits to
Black Beach prison in 2005 and again in 2007 and 2008, but did not allow these
visits in 2006.

President Obiang announces periodic
amnesties, usually in relation to a national holiday or prominent date.[264] In October 2002 and in August 2003, the president granted amnesty
to 18 political prisoners (the August amnesty was announced on the 24th
anniversary of the military coup that brought Obiang to power on August 3,
1979, and was timed for a news crew that was in the country from 60 Minutes).
In June and November 2006, and to mark his 66th birthday on June 5,
2008, the president again pardoned and released some political prisoners and
other detainees. The most recent amnesty was on June 4, 2008, when the
government media reported that Obiang had freed 37 people. This release
coincided with the president’s birthday.[265] However, Amnesty International noted that some of those people had
been released already in 2003 and 2006.[266]

Detentions
and abuse arising from coup plot allegations

Alleged coup in 2002 and clampdown on the Fuerza
Demócrata Republicana party

Between mid-March and May 2002, about 144
people linked to the unlegalized opposition party Fuerza Demócrata
Republicana (FDR) were arrested by the authorities under suspicion of
attempting a coup and put on trial in May and June. Sixty-eight of the accused
were given jail sentences ranging from six to twenty years. Among them were
Plácido Micó (secretary-general of the CPDS), Felipe Nguema
Obiang (leader of the FDR and a former education minister), Guillermo Nguema
Elá (FDR, and a former planning minister), and Felipe Ondó
Obiang (a leader of the Unión Popular).[267] A delegate from Amnesty International who observed the trial
described the proceedings as highly irregular and unjust, and the trial was
widely condemned, including by the European Union.[268] (For the earlier trial of Guillermo Nguema and Felipe
Ondó in 1998 following their abduction from exile, see below.) Fabian Nsue Nguema (secretary-general of the UP) was also arrested
in an unrelated case.

At least some of these detainees were
tortured while in custody. Human Rights Watch interviewed two of the defendants
who had been tortured while in pretrial detention in 2002. They described being
tied up with a rope and hung from a bar. Their wrists, ankles, and shoulders
were either dislocated or broken as a result of their treatment. Human Rights Watch
examined their medical records which, together with the scars the prisoners
showed to our researcher, were consistent with the torture that they described.
The individuals also described how they were blindfolded for prolonged periods,
kept in appalling conditions, and denied access to their lawyers and family.
They said that the mistreatment was intended to coerce them into making
incriminating statements regarding their alleged role in the coup attempt.[269] According to Amnesty International, two individuals died in July
and August 2002 as a result of poor prison conditions and from the injuries
they sustained from torture and ill-treatment.[270]

Guillermo Nguema had been in poor health
when he was arrested, and his health worsened because of ill-treatment while
detained in Black Beach prison.[271] Felipe Ondo Obiang was removed from Black Beach on June 9, 2003, and
transferred to Evinayong jail in Rio Muni where he was initially held in
seriously inhuman and degrading conditions. He was not allowed regular access
to his family or to a lawyer and was kept in solitary confinement and chained
for several months. His physical and mental health reportedly deteriorated
during this time.[272]

Plácido Micó was pardoned and
released under the August 2003 presidential amnesty. The June 2006 amnesty
benefitted 42 people, including 10 to 15 members or sympathizers of the FDR who
had been convicted in the May and June coup trials, one of whom was Felipe Ondó Obiang.[273]Guillermo Nguema Elá, Felipe Nguema Obiang, and 12 other
FDR members were among beneficiaries of the June 2008
amnesty.[274]The authorities have ordered all those pardoned in June 2008 to stay in
their villages of origin. They have been told they may not leave without
authorization, even though many of them had been living in other towns for many
years prior to their arrest.

Alleged coup attempts in 2003 and 2004

In November and December 2003 there were
arrests of some 100 army servicemen whose ranks ranged from general to cadet (a
number of others fled Equatorial Guinea at this time to seek asylum in
Cameroon, Gabon, and Spain).[275] Some 80 of the detainees were prosecuted for “crimes against
state security” during a one-day secret trial in Bata by a military
tribunal in February 2004.[276] About half of those tried were convicted and received sentences of
six to thirty years in prison. Unusually for Equatorial Guinea, some of the
families of the accused publicly denounced the proceedings as unjust.[277]

On May 28, 2004, some 20 people reportedly
attacked a military barracks on Corisco Island in what the authorities called a
coup attempt. According to the government, security forces killed five people.
Amnesty International, however, reported that soldiers shot and killed some 12
to 16 attackers as they fled and summarily executed those who surrendered. Five
people arrested after the alleged attack appeared on television, and footage
seen by Human Rights Watch suggests that sections had been cut out of their
ears. There have also been allegations that one of those arrested, Alfredo
Asumu, was suspended from a ceiling and beaten.[278] The attorney general interviewed them in August 2005, but it is
unknown what then happened.

A further crackdown against military
personnel occurred in October and November 2004 with the arrest of scores of
soldiers and former soldiers whom the Equatorial Guinea authorities accused of
plotting a coup on October 8, 2004. There were some 80 arrests of military
officers plus family members.[279] About 70 people charged with offenses related to this alleged coup
attempt were reportedly tortured before and during a military trial from
September 6 to 19, 2005, in Bata. The group consisted of former military
officers and relatives of the alleged leader of the attempted coup. Most of the
defendants had been held incommunicado in Bata Prison since their arrests in
December 2004 and January 2005. All but two of the defendants reportedly stated
in the military court that they had been tortured in detention, and some
reportedly still bore visible marks. One man apparently had to be carried in
and out of court as he was unable to walk as a result of torture. Statements
extracted by torture were used as evidence during the hearing. The trial did
not conform to international fair trial standards, and at least six persons were
tried in absentia in contravention of national law. In all cases the defense
lawyers did not have access to prosecution-held evidence and only had their
client’s statements. Those convicted had no right to appeal, and the
court ignored the allegations of torture. Nine persons, including six in
absentia defendants, were sentenced to thirty years in prison on charges of
undermining the security of the state and attempting to overthrow the
government.[280] Eleven others were convicted of the same offenses as accessories
and sentenced to twenty-one years’ imprisonment. Francisco Mba Mendama
(who was also convicted of undermining the security of the state and received a
30-year prison sentence) and two others were convicted of treason and received
additional 25-year prison sentences. One person received a 12-year prison
sentence.

Since October 2004, Florencio Ela, wife of
one of the in absentia defendants, Florencio Ela Bibang, as well as other
members of his family and friends, have been reportedly imprisoned without
charge or trial. According to Amnesty International they have reportedly been
tortured. (For Bibang’s abduction from Nigeria, as well as the abduction
from neighboring countries of other alleged coup plotters convicted in
absentia, and their subsequent “disappearance,” see below.)

The Moto coup of 2008

Reports of coup attempts have become a
trademark of Equatorial Guinea’s politics, especially during electoral
cycles where allegations have been used by the government to detain or
intimidate opposition supporters. An example of this was in March 2008 in the
run-up to the legislative elections: Saturnino Ncogo Mbomio, a militant of
Severo Moto’s banned Partido de Progreso de Guinea Ecuatorial, was
arrested by security police on March 12, 2008, following the discovery of
weapons in a second-hand car being imported from Spain to Equatorial Guinea.
Saturnino Mbomio was allegedly tortured, and the authorities claim that a
search of his house uncovered three assault rifles, a sniper rifle, a gun with
a silencer, and some ammunition. The authorities allege he committed suicide in
Black Beach prison by throwing himself from the top of a bunk bed, fracturing
his skull, but the government has refused to investigate his death.[281]

Saturnino Mbomio’s arrest was
followed by the arrest in March of at least six others—Emiliano Esono
Micha, Cruz Obiang Ebebere, Gumersindo Ramírez Faustino, Bonfacio Nguema
Ndong, Pedro Ndong, and Gerardo Angüe—all of whom appear to have
been arrested because of a past association with the PPGE.[282] They were put on trial in late June 2008 with Simon Mann, accused
of the March 2004 “Wonga coup” (see Chapter VI). During the trial
they were given minimal access to their lawyer and withdrew their confessions.
One detainee declared he had been tortured, and they were all convicted.[283]

Other
prisoner cases

Case of Rev. Bienvenido Samba Momesori

Rev. Bienvenido Samba Momesori, a Protestant pastor of the Church of Cherubs and Seraphs, was
arrested on October 26, 2003, in Malabo, and held without charge or trial until
his release by presidential pardon on June 5, 2008. He was initially imprisoned
at Black Beach prison but was moved to Evinayong jail on the mainland when the
authorities learned that an ICRC delegation had been looking for him (the ICRC
was subsequently able to visit him regularly).

Reverend Samba had previously been arrested
in 1998 following attacks on a military barracks by a small, armed Bioko
separatist group. Samba was at the time convicted and sentenced to death,
commuted to life imprisonment. He had been released in October 2002 under a
presidential pardon.[284]

Wave of arrests of opposition politicians in 2004

Pedro Ndong and Salvador Bibang were
detained in Malabo in March 2004, and at this writing five years on, they
remain held without charge. Their detention was believed to be connected to
their previous membership in the outlawed PPGE, the party led by exile leader
Severo Moto. Other arrests followed. On June 27, security forces shot and
wounded Marcelino Manuel Nguema Esono, another PPGE leader, in the course of
arresting him in Bata.[285]

As is often the pattern in Equatorial
Guinea, relatives of suspects are detained by security forces in an attempt to
force suspects to cooperate. In 2004, according to the US Department of State,
relatives of PPGE supporters, including the wife of activist Marcelino
Nguema Esono, Pilar Angue Adimi, their daughter Elvira Okomo,
and Nicolas Obiang, “were arrested and tortured. Their homes were looted
and dismantled.”[286]

On March 4, 2004, Weja Chicampo Puye,
leader of the unregistered Movimento para la Autodeterminacion de Isla de Bioko
(MIAB), was arrested by at least 10 hooded police officers who beat him and
knocked him unconscious, breaking his nose. He was imprisoned incommunicado and
denied medical treatment for several months;[287] for the first four months he was held in handcuffs, and on April 5
he was moved briefly by the authorities from Black Beach prison to the military
prison (Campamento Acacio Mañé) so as not to be seen by a
visiting ICRC delegation.[288] Weja Chicampo was eventually brought before an investigative judge,
and on June 5, 2006, he was taken by several police officers to the airport and
put on a scheduled flight to Madrid, Spain, without a passport.[289] His release and expulsion was part of an amnesty decreed by
President Obiang, although he had not been charged or tried.[290]

His family was not informed about his
expulsion or whereabouts. His expulsion violates the country’s
constitution, which guarantees freedom of movement and the right to choose
one’s place of residence, and well as the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights.

Weja Chicampo had returned to Equatorial
Guinea from exile in Spain in August 2003 by the invitation of Equatorial
Guinea’s then-prime minister, and he was in the process of getting his
party legally recognized at the time of his arrest. Human Rights Watch openly
met him in Malabo in late 2003, at which time he expressed his hope for greater
democratic openness in Equatorial Guinea.[291] He believes he was imprisoned because although he advocates a
peaceful project called the “Three D’s—Democracy, Development
and Decentralisation,” the government incorrectly suspected that he
wanted to overthrow the government.

Short-term detention

In January 2004 police arrested Simon Maria
Nsue Moky of the Republican Forces for Reflection and Action on Equatorial
Guinea (FRRAGE) for distributing information about a FRRAGE meeting abroad. He
was detained incommunicado without charge for six weeks before being released.[292]

In November 2004 Pio Miguel Obama, a member
of the CPDS and a Malabo local councillor, was arrested and accused of holding
an illegal meeting in Basupú, although he was not there on the day in
question. He was released without charge on December 24, 2004.

On May 8, 2005, a delegation of 15 CPDS
activists were attacked at Malabo airport while trying to leave the country to
take part in a conference in Spain organized by a foundation close to
Spain’s ruling Socialist party. The activists had been asked by officials
for exit permits to leave the country, which they claimed they did not require.
This resulted in policemen attacking the young people and those accompanying
them, hitting them with the butts of their handguns, causing substantial injury
to some and leaving some girls undressed in public. At least 10 CPDS supporters
were arrested and detained in Malabo’s central police station. Spanish
Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos raised the issue with his Equatoguinean
counterpart, Pastor Ondo Bile, on May 11, 2005, in Madrid during a meeting.[293] The detained CPDS activists, including an individual who had been
badly injured but had been given no medical treatment, were released a week
later. All citizens are usually required to obtain permission to travel abroad
from the local police commissioner, and members of opposition parties sometimes
find this is used to stop their supporters from travelling or to delay their
travel arrangements.[294] In this case, according to the US Department of State’s
“Country Report on Human Rights Practices,” police reportedly asked
them for their authorization as a pretext to attack them.[295]

Harassment of the opposition continued
during 2006 through 2008, although more sporadically than in 2004 and 2005. On
October 8, 2006, José Antonio Nguema, Filemón Ondó,
Florencio Ondó, and Basilio Mayé, all associated with the PPGE,
were arrested in Bata and held incommunicado in Bata public prison on charges
of being members of a banned political party and possessing party leaflets and
other documents. They were deprived of food and water for several days, and
their lives were threatened unless they confessed to illegal association and
possession of documents “harmful to the state.” They appeared
before the investigating judge on October 31, 2006, and on November 12 they
were released without charge.[296] Their release occurred immediately prior to an official visit by
President Obiang to Spain.

Ten CPDS activists were arrested on April
8, 2006, when they tried to convene an approved meeting in Rebola. Eight were
quickly released, but executive committee members Carlos Ona Boriesa and
Carmelo Indi were beaten during their detention and transferred to the Baney
military camp. They were released and taken back to Rebola that evening after a
senior official intervened.[297] On October 12, 2006, security forces briefly arrested three CPDS
district leaders for preparing to hold a meeting in Acurenam.[298]

On October 14, 2007, according to the US
Department of State, security forces arrested Jaime Ndong Edu, a CPDS member,
who was subsequently detained and tortured by Deputy Police Commissioner Donato
Abogo Menden.[299] Jaime Ndong was subsequently released.[300]

The wife of FDR leader Guillermo Nguema,
Brígida Asongsua Elo, was arrested on December 16, 2007, following a
visit to her husband in prison. She was held without charge or trial in harsh
conditions at Malabo central police station until April 25, 2008.

In March 2009, according to Amnesty
International,

Nine members of the opposition party,
People’s Union, including the wife and brother of the party’s
leader, have been arbitrarily arrested and detained without charge or trial in
the aftermath of an attack on the presidential palace in the capital, Malabo,
on February 17, 2009.... The Equatorial Guinean government attributed the
attack to forces of the Nigerian armed group the Movement for the Emancipation
of the Niger Delta (MEND), which the MEND has denied.[301]

Abduction
of opposition politicians from neighbouring countries

On many occasions, the Equatoguinean
security forces have kidnapped opposition politicians in exile in order for
them to stand trial in Equatorial Guinea. After Felipe Ondó Obiang
and Guillermo Nguema Elá of the unlegalized FDR party
went into exile in Gabon, they were abducted by Equatoguinean security forces
and brought back to Equatorial Guinea to stand trial in 1998. Both were
convicted of libel against the government and sentenced to 30 months’
imprisonment; they were released in 2001.

In May 2005 Amnesty International reported
that Juan Ondó Abaga, who had been in exile for eight years in Benin,
had been abducted by Equatoguinean security personnel in January 2005 and taken
to Black Beach prison in Malabo, where he was being held incommunicado.[302] He had been convicted in absentia for involvement in an alleged
October 2004 coup attempt and given a 30-year prison term. He was released by
the June 5, 2008 amnesty, but three other citizens remain unaccounted for.[303]

The safety of three individuals who have
now been effectively “disappeared” is of particular concern. Lt.
Col. Florencio Ela Bibang and Felipe Esono Ntumu “Pancho” were
arrested in Lagos in late April 2005 by Nigerian security officials, along with
a third man, Antonio Edú (Antimo Edú Nchama).[304] According to Amnesty International, the three were held
incommunicado by various branches of Nigeria’s security services; they
appear to have been handed over to Equatorial Guinean security personnel on
July 3, 2005, and taken to Black Beach prison, where they were tortured.[305] There has been no confirmation by the Equatorial Guinean government
of their presence, and the Nigerian government denies knowledge of their
current whereabouts, but the US Department of State has reported that when the
ICRC and the National Human Rights Commission visited Black Beach prison, these
inmates were moved to other locations so that the representatives could not see
them or talk to them.[306] The UN
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in July 2007 tried to gain access to Juan
Ondó Abaga, Felipe Esono Ntumu “Pancho,” Florencio Ela
Bibang, and Antonio Edú at Black Beach prison, having received a private
letter during its visit to Black Beach saying the prisoners were kept in a
separate wing of the prison and wanted to meet them. The Equatoguinean authorities
denied their existence.[307]

In August 2005 two political refugees were
reportedly kidnapped from their home in Libreville, Gabon, and driven to the
Equatorial Guinean embassy, from where they escaped to the UN High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR).[308] This pattern continued in 2008 after former Equatoguinean army
colonel Cipriano Nguema Mba was arrested illegally on or around October 8,
2008, by two Cameroonian police officers and handed over to security personnel
at the Equatorial Guinean embassy in Yaoundé. The Cameroonian
authorities have denied any role in his arrest; they have arrested two
policemen and have launched an investigation into the matter. UNHCR has also
asked the Cameroonian authorities to explain Nguema Mba’s disappearance,
as he was a UNHCR-recognized refugee in Cameroon. His family and UN officials
have visited him at Black Beach prison and report that he shows no signs of
torture.[309]

In October 2003 Nguema Mba had fled the
country after being accused of plotting to overthrow the Equatoguinean government
and stealing money. In his absence he was tried at a secret military trial in
February 2004, at which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. According to
Amnesty International, many members of his family and close associates were
also defendants at the same trial, and many were tortured during the pretrial
detention.[310]

Two men, Fabián Ovono Esono and
José Ndong, were also reportedly abducted in Nigeria and returned to
Equatorial Guinea in December 2008. Both had also fled the country in 2003 to
escape a crackdown on people suspected of involvement in a coup against the
president. Amnesty International believes they are held in prison in Bata.[311]

Extrajudicial
Killings Abroad

There are regular allegations about the
Equatorial Guinean security forces committing extraterritorial, extrajudicial
executions. Manuel Tomo-Mayo was stabbed in the stomach in front of his
brothers’ house on June 20, 2005, in Madrid by an assailant who claimed
to follow orders from Malabo. Manuel Tomo was the brother of exiled activist
German Pedro Tomo Mangue (who was reportedly the target). Spanish police and
government officials have claimed this was a revenge attack for a local
dispute.[312] On February 4, 2006, two unidentified assailants in Côte
d’Ivoire murdered political dissident Atanasio Bita Rope Laesa.[313]
According to police his body was found with two bullet wounds two days after he
had been abducted by individuals who claimed to be police. Although an exiled Equatoguinean opposition party claims this was a politically
motivated murder, Human Rights Watch is unable to establish the veracity of
this claim. The Spanish embassy in Abidjan investigated this case, but
its findings were inconclusive. However, it indicated it would assist the
surviving family to obtain asylum in Spain.

VI. The “Wonga Coup”
Attempt of 2004

As discussed above, there have been some 12
reported coup attempts in Equatorial Guinea since 1979, some real and some
imaginary. The most widely reported coup attempt—and one that was
evidently real—occurred in March 2004 and was nicknamed the “Wonga
coup.”[314] It involved the arrest on March 7 of UK national Simon Mann and 69
others at Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe, on board a Boeing 727-100 in
the process of taking on a shipment of arms, and the arrest on March 8 of South
African Nick du Toit and 14 others in Malabo.[315] It extended to an international cast of characters including key
members of the defunct South African private military firm Executive Outcomes,
exiled opposition leader Severo Moto, and Mark Thatcher, son of the former
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

The Equatorial Guinean government claims
Mann and Du Toit were part of an operation intended to overthrow the government
of Equatorial Guinea and replace President Obiang with the exiled Severo Moto
(apparently his second attempt to foment an armed coup in Equatorial Guinea).[316] The full picture of who was sponsoring and going to benefit from
the coup attempt is difficult to establish.[317] But according to Nick du Toit in an October 2004 signed statement,
“This whole thing is about money. Oil was the motivation behind the
attempted coup.”[318] The episode appears to demonstrate that, with oil as the
motivation, Equatorial Guinea’s lack of democracy, development, and due
process provided an unstable context in which undemocratic efforts to achieve
regime change became attractive.

An individual who was supposed to have been
on the Harare Boeing flight and who was interviewed by Human Rights Watch
claims he had full prior knowledge that an Equatorial Guinea coup attempt was
planned.[319] A second individual admitted to Human Rights Watch that he
had been very involved from Spain in the early planning stages of a coup for
Moto in Equatorial Guinea but dropped out once “the Brits got involved
and complicated things.”[320] A third individual, who was detained in connection with the coup
attempt but later released, also told Human Rights Watch that he had been told
they were going on a mission to enact “assisted regime change” in
an undisclosed African country, but he did not know which country until on the
flight to Zimbabwe.[321]

This plot was also already being monitored
by a number of governments who had obtained intelligence about the coup attempt
during its final planning stages. South African and Angolan intelligence had
subsequently informed Harare and Malabo prior to the March 7, 2004 landing of
the Boeing flight in Harare.[322]

The most reliable information comes from a
South African court trial. In 2006 eight South Africans suspected of
involvement in the coup were put on trial at the Pretoria Regional Court in
South Africa on charges of breaking the Regulation of Foreign Military
Assistance Act.[323] The eight were part of the group of seventy people who were
arrested in Zimbabwe on March 7, 2004, and subsequently jailed (see below).[324] Sixty-one were released in May 2005 by Zimbabwean authorities and
returned to South Africa, where the National Prosecuting Authority sought to
prosecute nine of them;[325] the authorities said they could not attempt to prosecute the others
as they did not have enough evidence.[326] Details of how the alleged coup was originally to be staged were
revealed at the Pretoria Regional Court: Equatorial Guinea’s President
Obiang was to have been lured to the airport with the promise of new 4x4 vehicles,
and then overpowered and flown out of the country, replaced by Severo Moto.[327]

On February 23, 2007, Magistrate Peel
Johnson, sitting in the Pretoria Regional Court, threw the case out after a
number of state witnesses claimed the attempted coup was sanctioned by the
South African, British, Spanish, and US governments. The magistrate ruled there
was credible evidence by the state’s witnesses that the South African
government sanctioned the coup, or that the accused were under the impression
that it was sanctioned. The Pretoria magistrate found that the state had not
proved its case against the men, and that while the actions of the men were
unlawful, he could not find by “any stretch of the imagination”
that they had knowingly contravened the Regulation of Foreign Military
Assistance Act. The director general of the South African secret service,
Hilton Dennis, admitted that he knew of the plot but did not sanction it.[328] Explaining why he allowed the men to fly out of South Africa, he
said, “There are many ways to kill a cat. We chose this route and
succeeded in preventing the coup.”[329]

Lebanese-British businessman Ely Calil,
subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the Equatorial Guinean
government and tried in absentia (see below), denied any involvement in a coup
attempt but admitted he had funded Severo Moto and supported “democratic
change” in Equatorial Guinea. He said there had been a scheme to fly Moto
to Equatorial Guinea and protect him for a few days, while people rose up in
support of him.[330]

Severo Moto, who lives in exile in Spain,
had his political refugee status revoked by the Spanish government on December
30, 2005 (it had first been given to him in 1986). The move was announced by
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega ” following
confirmation” of Moto’s role in “different attempted coups
d’etat” against the government of Equatorial Guinea.[331]However, in March 2008 the
Spanish Supreme Court reversed the government’s decision and reinstated
Moto’s refugee status.

However, Moto was arrested by the Spanish
authorities on April 14, 2008, and accused of being involved in arms
trafficking to Equatorial Guinea. Moto was accused of having purchased some
light weapons, which his associates tried to smuggle in a car destined for
Equatorial Guinea but which were later found in the eastern Spanish port of
Sagunto in mid-March 2008.[332]

Severo Moto was allowed to leave jail in
July 2008 after paying US$14,500 bail. The decision to free Moto on bail was
made by a new judge in charge of the case. Although the Spanish police and
prosecution services claim to have collected sufficient evidence, the small
number of weapons and the lack of sophistication cast doubts on the threat
posed to the Equatoguinean government. In September 2008 Moto admitted in an
interview with the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph that he had
hired British mercenary Simon Mann in 2004 to assist him in bringing
“democracy” to Equatorial Guinea through a coup.[333]

Trials for the Coup
Attempt Seriously Flawed

Trials related to the coup attempt ensued
in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea. Unlike the trial in South Africa, due
process in both countries had significant flaws.

Simon Mann was convicted on August 27,
2004, of attempting to purchase $80,300 worth of munitions from the Zimbabwe
state arms company in contravention of the Zimbabwe Firearms Act. He was
sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, subsequently reduced to four
years’ on appeal.[334] A lower Zimbabwean court convicted 64 of the people arrested with
him of relatively minor immigration offenses after prosecutors failed to prove
more serious weapons and coup conspiracy charges.

The trial of Nick du Toit, 13 other foreign
nationals (seven South Africans and six Armenians), and five Equatorial
Guineans began in Malabo on August 23, 2004, before three civilian judges (before
the start of the trial defendant Gehard Merz, a German citizen, died at Black
Beach prison in Malabo on March 17, 2004—see below).[335] On August 31 the prosecution asked for the indefinite suspension of
the trial because the prosecution hoped to obtain more information on Mark
Thatcher, but this was not forthcoming. On November 16 the trial resumed when
the prosecutor general presented cases in absentia against Severo Moto and his
exile government, Ely Calil, British businessman Gregory Wales, and nine other
men, all members of the Partido del Progreso de Guinea Ecuatorial living in
exile in Spain. On November 26, three South Africans and three Equatoguineans
were acquitted,[336] while the other defendants were convicted of an attempt to commit
crimes against the head of state and against the government. They received
sentences of between 16 months and 62 years—given to Severo Moto. Du Toit
received 34 years.[337] Those tried in absentia have remained abroad and have not returned
to Equatorial Guinea.

Observers from the International Bar
Association and Amnesty International concluded that the trial was highly
flawed, especially due to serious procedural failings and allegations that
torture was used to extract statements.[338] Amnesty International delegates noted that during both the pretrial
stage and the court hearing itself there were serious procedural irregularities
in the application of Equatorial Guinea law and a flagrant disregard for
regional and international human rights law and standards. President Obiang
pardoned the six convicted Armenians in June 2005 on “humanitarian
grounds” after intense lobbying by the Armenian government and others. On
June 4, 2006, South African national Marious Gerhardus Boonzaier
“Bone” was also pardoned by President Obiang on humanitarian
grounds because he needed critical medical treatment (the local authorities for
months prior to this announcement had refused to acknowledge the seriousness of
his condition).

Human Rights Watch has interviewed one of
these former prisoners, who described how he was kept in handcuffs all the
time, and for the first 10 days beaten regularly and tortured during
interrogation, such as by having a flame held to the sole of a foot or being
beaten while given food.[339] A number of confessions appear to have been extracted after torture
or following other forms of coercion such as death threats. Another former
detainee, Abel Augusto, interviewed for a book about the Wonga coup, said that
Gehard Merz had died from trauma from torture. Abel Augusto said Merz enraged
the interrogators, because “[w]hen they hit him, he never said a
word.”[340] This provoked more severe battering, and finally he was dumped back
in a cell where fellow prisoners called for medical help but were ignored.
Gehard Merz died from a heart attack.[341]

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
in July 2007 also interviewed four South Africans accused as mercenaries and
was told that they had been severely tortured while in pretrial detention. The
Working Group observed they were forced to wear leg irons and had marks from
the torture they had suffered on their legs, hands, and feet.[342]

Lawyers associated with the case have also
suffered. In July 2005 the Bar Association of Equatorial Guinea suspended the
lawyer Fabian Nsue Nguema and a colleague from his law firm from practice for
one year, after Nsue Nguema defended the South African mercenaries involved in
the March 2004 coup attempt and continued to represent them. Nsue Nguema
received no prior notice of what the allegations were that led to his
suspension. Nor was he given the opportunity to defend himself against any
allegations.[343] The ban was imposed following government pressure after Nsue Nguema
had requested to visit the five jailed South African mercenaries (a request
that was rejected in April 2005 by the Supreme Court) and because of his
routine criticism of the government, particularly on human rights.[344]

The confessions made by the detainees in
Equatorial Guinea in 2004 were clearly suspect, as were several statements made
in Zimbabwe, which Mann claims were made only following torture and duress.
Henry Page, the British lawyer who worked for the Equatorial Guinean
government, has been criticised by Mann’s lawyer in Zimbabwe for putting
his client under enormous pressure to confess and name financiers to be
prosecuted in a civil case in the United Kingdom. A Guernsey court also
expressed its concern about the validity of evidence provided by Henry Page on
behalf of the government of Equatorial Guinea.[345]

Simon Mann was due to be released from
Zimbabwe’s Chikurubi maximum security prison in May 2007 due to good
behavior. However, the Equatorial Guinean government sought his extradition in
order to try him, promising to provide an independent judge selected by the
African Union and to not apply the death penalty if Mann was convicted of
leading the coup plot. During an extradition hearing in late April 2007, the
Zimbabwean authorities refused to issue a visa for former Equatorial Guinean
citizen Weja Chicampo (he was given Spanish citizenship after being extradited
by Malabo—his extradition is discussed in the previous chapter) to
testify on behalf of Mann’s defense team about how he had been treated
while jailed at Black Beach. The defense team opposed the extradition, arguing
that it would be a violation of Zimbabwe’s legal obligations under
various international and African human rights treaties.[346] Simon Mann was finally extradited by Zimbabwe to Equatorial Guinea
in February 2008 and placed in Black Beach prison.[347]

During his four-day trial in Malabo in
early 2008, Simon Mann implicated the governments of South Africa and Spain and
implied that the United States would have looked favourably on a coup. He also
claimed Ely Calil masterminded the coup using funds from Mark Thatcher and that
Equatorial Guinean officials were also involved. He confirmed that the coup
attempt was rushed in advance of Spanish elections in 2004, and that one plan
was to have had local officials come out in support of the arrival of Severo
Moto.[348] Mark Thatcher admitted to South African prosecutors to having
provided funding for an aircraft, but said that he had not knowingly supported
a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea.

On July 7, 2008, Simon Mann was sentenced
to 34 years in prison and was ordered to pay compensation to the Equatorial
Guinea state totalling around $24 million.[349]

On trial alongside Mann were Lebanese
businessman Mohamed Salaam and seven Equatorial Guinean nationals, all of whom
had been arrested In March and April 2008. Salaam was
convicted of the same charges as Mann and received an 18-year prison sentence.
The Equatorial Guinean nationals were convicted on charges of illegal
association, being members of the PPGE and holding meetings in early 2006, and
possession of arms and ammunition. Five of the six were sentenced to six years
each, and the sixth to one year. One Equatorial Guinean defendant was
acquitted.[350]

The Equatorial Guineans had been held in detention without
charge for about three months before finally being informed of the allegations
against them. Their statements were taken by the prosecutor in the presence of
the minister of national security, but without any legal representation. There
are also reports that some of the defendants were beaten while in police
custody and not given access to their families or to a lawyer until five days
before the trial.

According to Amnesty International, the defendants were
forced to sign statements they had not made. In court, the Equatorial Guineans
retracted their statements on the basis that they were made under duress and
torture. However, the court did not examine the allegations of coercion and
allowed the statements to be admitted as evidence. Furthermore, in the summing
up at the end of the trial the attorney general requested an additional 20
years to be added to their sentences for failing to collaborate with the
administration of justice by stating in court that they had been forced to sign
statements under duress.”[351]

Crackdown on Foreigners

It appears that the coup attempt coincided
and may have contributed to a purge of foreigners in Equatorial Guinea. Two
weeks preceding this coup in March 2004, and for weeks after, the authorities
cracked down on foreigners.[352] Up to 1,000 African nationals, mainly Cameroonians, were deported
during the eight weeks after the coup attempt, and Cameroon withdrew its
ambassador in protest.[353] Human Rights Watch interviewed a number of Ghanaians and Nigerians
who had been deported from Equatorial Guinea during this purge. Several women
claimed they were raped and that local Equatorial Guineans who were not police
officers were allowed to arrest people suspected of being illegal residents.[354] Many were forcibly deported without due process or being allowed to
exercise their right to appeal.[355]

A small number of oil workers were also
arbitrarily detained and assaulted, such as the representative of the Angolan
state oil company SONANGOL.[356]

Equatorial Guinea’s attorney general
also issued a warning that the coup plotters “are commandos, they are
more highly trained than an ordinary military officer ... they were going to
come to Equatorial Guinea under the effects of drugs, and so they were not
going to have pity on anyone. Therefore, as attorney general, I call on the
population to be vigilant with foreigners, regardless of color, because the
target is the wealth of Equatorial Guinea, the oil.”[357]

VII. The Role of the International
Community

The
United States

With the growth of the Equatorial
Guinea’s oil industry, the United States under the Bush administration
sought to improve its relations with the Equatorial Guinean government. Prior
to that the US had closed its embassy in Malabo in 1995 partly in protest
against pervasive human rights abuses and endemic corruption. The US reopened a
limited-function embassy in Malabo in 2003, although the US ambassador in
Yaoundé remained concurrently accredited to Cameroon and Equatorial
Guinea until September 2006. A resident US ambassador in Equatorial Guinea,
Donald C. Johnson, arrived in Equatorial Guinea to take up post on November 14,
2006, ending a break of 12 years.

The reopening of the embassy followed
intensive lobbying by the US oil industry, which had argued it was needed to
counterbalance growing Chinese influence.[358] US companies have the largest and most visible presence in the
country—with investments estimated at US$11 billion—and are the
largest cumulative bilateral foreign investors. In 2005 the US was Equatorial
Guinea’s main trading partner (24.6 percent), as oil exports to the US
reached $3.1 billion. In 2006 and 2007 the US imported some $1.7 billion-worth
of goods from Equatorial Guinea, mostly oil- and gas-related. This made the
United States Equatorial Guinea’s second-largest export market (16.4
percent) and the single largest source of imports (6.4 percent) in 2007.

Symbolizing this relationship, John
Isakson, a senator from Georgia and a member of the US Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, visited Equatorial Guinea in January 2008, the first visit of a US
senator for many years. He visited the Equatoguinean Liquid Natural Gas Plant,
as natural gas from this plant is shipped to the port of Savannah in his home
state of Georgia. A further signal of closer ties came as US coast guard cutter
Dallas concluded a three-day visit to the country on July 11, which included an
at-sea exercise involving five Equatorial Guinean naval vessels.[359]

The reopening of a full-fledged US embassy
in Malabo was rushed and reduced the US administration’s key leverage
tools for encouraging better governance and human rights. The choice of the
building to house the embassy (rented for $17,500 a month) was also a mistake.
It is owned by the minister of national security, Manuel Nguema Mba, uncle to
the president and a controversial figure who has allegedly been involved in
torture of opposition supporters in the past.[360] Human Rights Watch believes that the US administration should have
conducted better due diligence by finding a more suitable property before the
embassy was opened. In effect, the United States is providing income to a
senior government member accused of acts of torture.

President Obiang has been a regular visitor
to Washington, DC, and he met President Bush in September 2002 at a United
Nations meeting with Central African leaders in New York. In June 2004, when
President Obiang met then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, DC,
the Riggs Bank issue was discussed, and President Obiang asked for US
assistance in improving its transparency record, including help with the
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (see Chapter IV). Obiang also
requested US security training assistance from the US private military company
Military Professional Resources, Inc.

MPRI assistance is something that Obiang
has regularly sought. In 1998 MPRI first had been approached by Equatorial
Guinea to put together a National Security Enhancement Plan. MPRI needed
approval for such a project by the US Department of State, but the State
Department’s Africa Bureau refused because of the country’s poor
human rights record. MPRI appealed to the assistant secretary of state for
African affairs, but the department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights
and Labor opposed that application. MPRI then lobbied the US Congress, and in
2000 and 2001 a contract to assess Equatorial Guinea’s defense needs was
approved. MPRI made several trips to Malabo and then submitted a proposal to
revamp the armed and police forces, but was granted a license by the State
Department in May 2002 to train only the coast guard. US Senator Russel
Feingold, a leading proponent of human rights in Africa, was in the forefront
of opposition.[361]

This reservation by the Department of State
was lifted in 2005, but approval of a training program was made conditional on
credible human rights training and visible progress on the government’s
commitment toward poverty reduction and fiscal transparency.[362] According to MPRI, their National Security Enhancement Plan for
Equatorial Guinea has developed an integrated team of defense, security, and
coast guard experts to provide “a detailed set of recommendations to the
government of Equatorial Guinea concerning its defense, littoral, and related
environmental management requirements, as well as [a] detailed implementation
process.”[363]

The MPRI deal followed then-Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer’s visit to
Equatorial Guinea, during which she met President Obiang on February 15, 2006,
for talks on bilateral relations, governance, and oil. Frazer presented Obiang
with a “road map” of democracy and transparency goals for his
government to follow in its ties with Washington, DC. According to Cindy
Courville, then National Security Council senior director for Africa, who
accompanied Frazer, Obiang had accepted the US blueprint for stronger ties and
more talks would be held “to agree what is do-able.”[364]

The blueprint had a number of specific
benchmarks on democratization and human rights (such as focus on legal reforms
prior to the 2008 elections, promote freedom of expression and development of a
free press, and provide a list of political prisoners, allow US diplomats to
visit them, and end the practice of unlimited detention) and economic
development (such as developing and implementing a poverty reduction strategy
and transparent management of oil wealth, including EITI). There were also
benchmarks on humanitarian and social issues and security sector reform (linked
to the MPRI program).[365]

As symbols, these benchmarks were
important, but there are few signs that they have obtained significant
concessions from the Equatorial Guinean government on issues of human rights in
return for the two things President Obiang particularly sought and obtained in
2006: the return of a resident US ambassador to Malabo and MPRI training. Even
before Jendayi Frazer and Cindy Courville met President Obiang in February
2006, the return of a resident US ambassador was planned for that fall, and
MPRI expected to sign their contract with the Equatorial Guinean government that
April.[366] There was little effort by the US Department of State or the Bush
administration to measure progress on verbal undertakings by the Obiang
government about governance and human rights.

President Obiang further endorsed the US
Agency for International Development social program in Washington, DC, on April
11, 2006, and committed to make a $15 million contribution to the Equatorial
Guinean Social Development Fund.[367] On April 12, 2006, President Obiang met then-Secretary of State
Condolezza Rice at the US Department of State. During this meeting, Rice
somewhat controversially told Obiang, “You are a good friend and we
welcome you.”[368] This meeting attracted some criticism from members of the US
Congress and in the Washington, DC press.[369]

This “business first”
relationship was echoed when Donald C. Johnson testified before the US Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in August 2006.[370] In his testimony he mostly emphasized that “[t]he stability
and reliability of a source of raw materials equivalent to more than 350,000
barrels of oil per day from Equatorial Guinea is significantly relevant to our
energy security and well-being.” He hardly mentioned human rights issues,
but he did say he would “include candid discussions of issues that
concern us, including such matters as democracy, human rights, and financial
transparency.”[371]

Although Obiang wants to widen his
international relationships with the oil industry, especially following the US
Senate investigation into money laundering and corruption in July 2004, he
still values a close relationship with the United States, and this provides an
opening for dialogue on human rights and governance issues. The United States
remains Equatorial Guinea’s main trading partner, and the US oil industry
is alarmist, worried by increased competition rather than taking a long-term
strategic approach toward governance and human rights and the stability that
can bring.

The new Obama administration has an
opportunity to show that energy security does not have to come at the expense
of human rights and good governance. The new administration should show
leadership on rights and governance issues. A first step would be to review the
lease of the US embassy building to ensure that the United States is not paying
rent to an alleged rights abuser. It should also immediately determine whether
there are assets in the United States obtained through corruption by senior
officials of the Equatoguinean government, and work to repatriate those assets
to their rightful owners—the people of Equatorial Guinea. And finally,
they should ensure through new or existing laws and regulations that US
companies do not become complicit in the corruption and abuses that mar
resource-rich countries like Equatorial Guinea.

China

China is currently equally favoured by
Equatorial Guinea. Trade with China was 21.8 percent in 2005, and exports from
Equatorial Guinea to China rose by 138 percent from $374 million in 2003 to
$2.5 billion in 2006.[372] In 2007 China was Equatorial Guinea’s largest export market,
accounting for 18.3 percent of the total (mostly oil). Equatorial Guinea
established diplomatic relations with China in 1970; President Obiang has
visited China six times in the past decade.[373] He announced on his return to Malabo from a tour of Asia including
China in October 2005 that “[f]rom now on, China is the main partner with
whom we are going to develop Equatorial Guinea.”[374] On February 17, 2006, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation,
Ltd., announced it had been awarded a production sharing contract for Block S
in one of Equatorial Guinea’s offshore fields.[375] A year later, on his return from Beijing’s Forum on
China-Africa Cooperation in November 2006, Obiang stated, “China posed no
prior conditions on democracy and human rights in its cooperation with African
countries.”[376] During the summit several economic agreements were made between the
two countries, the most important of which was the concession by the
state-controlled Export-Import Bank (ExIm) of China of a $2 billion oil-backed
loan to Equatorial Guinea. In January 2007 Obiang reemphasized that China was
Equatorial Guinea’s “best friend” during a visit by Foreign
Minister Li to Malabo.

Chinese construction firms are active in
Equatorial Guinea as elsewhere in Africa; they work harder and for less, according
to Equatoguinean officials. In March 2008 a labor-contractor dispute over
salaries escalated into a strike and then open violence by Chinese laborers
working for Jianyu Overseas Development Limited, a subsidiary of Weihai
Construction Group. The dispute resulted in Equatoguinean police intervening,
opening fire and killing two Chinese workers and injuring four others.[377] Despite this incident, China’s Vice-Minister for Foreign
Trade Chao Wu-Chen visited Equatorial Guinea on December 8, 2008, and signed
agreements with the Equatoguinean government for a series of new public works
projects.

Other
International Actors

President Obiang in his book My Life For
My People noted that the discovery of oil has resulted in reduced pressure
on him to reform, including from the international financial institutions and
the European Union. He writes,

I have realized that the discovery of oil
in Equatorial Guinea and especially the importance of these resources have
completely changed the attitude of many of our partners, especially those who
were more critical. Suddenly they have become more permissive. I know it is
human nature, but not only men have changed in this fashion, institutions have
done the same. And I specifically mean the International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank, and the European Union.[378]

VIII. Recommendations

To the
government of Equatorial Guinea

Establish a clear fiscal
policy for transparent management of oil wealth, including making the budget
public, identifying the location of foreign accounts, and conducting an audit
of government accounts.

Progressively realize the
rights of access to health and education, and ensure appropriate allocation of
resources to that end is made.

Ensure that government
officials declare their assets and that this is verifiable (as provided for by
Equatorial Guinea law).

Produce a comprehensive
list of political prisoners, and provide information on where all prisoners are
being detained.

Grant families access to
the detained.

Promptly investigate
allegations of torture.

Allow foreign diplomats
access to the country’s prisons and detention centers to monitor the
condition of prisoners and prisons.

Put procedures in place to
ensure free, fair, and transparent elections, including voter registration and
elections training and monitoring, and allow independent foreign monitors and
journalists access.

Uphold the rights of the
opposition to travel freely, hold meetings, disseminate their views, and have
equal access to the media.

Respect and promote freedom
of expression in accordance with Equatorial Guinea’s international human
rights obligations.

Ensure that an independent
appraisal can be made of the effectiveness of human rights training given by
MPRI to security and law enforcement agencies.

To
EITI

Insist upon full participation
of independent civil society, particularly organizations focused on human
rights and good governance, as an essential condition before declaring
Equatorial Guinea EITI compliant.

To the
US government

Congress should mandate that the Export-Import Bank (ExIm)
and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) require extractive
companies who receive funding or political risk insurance from them to
show that they have effective policies and procedures to address security
and human rights, and give those companies the capacity to monitor
compliance with those standards.

Bilateral military assistance and training programs that
involve security forces that also provide security to the extractive
industries should include components to ensure that funding is contingent
on respect for human rights and accountability for violations when they
provide such security.

Congress should examine how to ensure private security
contractors, who may provide services to the government and also to
extractive industries, follow human rights standards.

Congress should examine what steps can be taken to ensure
that extractive companies adequately follow human rights standards.

Congress should provide adequate resources and guidance to
the State Department, Department of Defense, and other relevant agencies,
and require them to raise human rights issues related to the provision of
security with foreign governments and to address the conduct of companies
operating abroad.

Identify assets held by
those officials with the intent of seizing and repatriating them to a freely
elected government.

Appendix: Letters from Oil Companies to Human
Rights Watch

Acknowledgements

Alex Vines, senior researcher for the Business and Human
Rights Program of Human Rights Watch, researched and wrote this report.
Additional research and writing was conducted by Arvind Ganesan, director of
the Business and Human Rights Program, and Carly Tubbs, coordinator for the
Business and Human Rights Program. The report was edited by Corinne Dufka,
senior researcher in the Africa Division; Aisling Reidy, senior legal advisor;
and Ian Gorvin, senior program officer. Layout and production were coordinated
by Carly Tubbs and Grace Choi, publications director. Fitzroy Hepkins, mail
manager, and Jose Martinez, production coordinator, provided additional
production assistance. We would also like to thank Marisé Castro
of Amnesty International for her expert review of this report.

[17]After operating clandestinely and publishing its newspaper La
Verdad (The Truth) in the early 1990s, the CPDS applied for legal
recognition in November 1992 and was given legal recognition in February 1993.
The CPDS attributed this recognition to international pressure.

[23]
Ibid. Invitations from the government to a number of international observers
were received within days of the elections, including to a Human Rights Watch
researcher. The “Orden de la Presidencia del Gobierno, de fecha 25 de
Marzo de 2004, por la que se regula la participacion de Observadores en el
desarrollo de las Elecciones en Guinea Ecuatorial” under article 18 permitted
observers “to travel freely in national territory according to the
programme organized by the government,” but were obliged under article 22
to report to the government any “anomalies” observed and were
forbidden to make public observations about the elections.

[29] “Spanish Journalists Denied Visas to Enter Country to Cover
Elections,” International Federation of Journalists press release, May 9, 2008. Affected media outlets included El País,
El Periodico de Catalunya, the public television channel TVE, and the
EFE news agency.

[32]
“Equatorial Guinea Leader gets 99 of 100 seats in
Parliament: Official,” Agence France-Presse, May 9, 2008. The ruling
coalition won 319 municipal councillorships, including 305 for the PDGE, out of
a total of 331. US Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs,
“Background Note: Equatorial Guinea,” March 2009.

[33]
UNCHR, “Situation of Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea and Assistance in
the Field of Human Rights,” Resolution 1999/19, E/CN.4/1999/L.11/Add.1,
April 23, 1999.

[34]
UNCHR, Report of the special representative on the human rights situation in
Equatorial Guinea, Gustavo Gallón, E/CN.4/2002/40,
January 24, 2002, p. 4.

[35]
In 2005, human rights organizations were added to the list of nongovernmental
organizations allowed to operate in Equatorial Guinea. In practice, however,
domestic human rights organizations rely primarily on funding from the government,
and do not investigate or report on human rights violations. US Department of
State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices—2007: Equatorial Guinea,” March 11, 2008.

[36]
Leoncio Yu Way Morales, “Technical Support Project for Social Investment
and Capacity Building in Equatorial Guinea: Design and Implementation Plan
(September 2006 through August, 2008),” USAID, January 31, 2007, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACJ154.pdf
(accessed November 8, 2008), p. 61. The author also notes that to register an
NGO through the Ministry of Interior and Local Corporations is cumbersome and
“takes a substantial amount of time, and in some cases, even years to be
completed.” Ibid., p. 61.

[37]
Article 12 of the ICESCR requires that states parties “recognize the
right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental heath.” Article 13 of the ICESCR states, in relevant
part, that states parties “recognize the right of everyone to
education…. [W]ith a view to achieving the full realization of this right
… [p]rimary education shall be compulsory and available free to
all.” ICESCR, adopted December 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N.
GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 49, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 993 U.N.T.S. 3, entered
into force January 3, 1976, arts. 12(1), 13(1), 13(2).

[39]
ICCPR, adopted December 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp.
(No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force
March 23, 1976; ICESCR, adopted December 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21
U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 49, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 993 U.N.T.S. 3,
entered into force January 3, 1976. Equatorial Guinea became a party to both
the ICCPR and the ICESCR on September 25, 1987. Article 19 of the ICCPR states,
in relevant part, “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of
expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in
writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his
choice.” Ibid., art. 19.

[40]
The concluding observations were published on July 30, 2004. UNHRC,
“Concluding Observations on the Situation of Civil and Political Rights:
Equatorial Guinea,” CCPR/CO/79/GNQ, July 30, 2004, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/ff303399c6edc0c0c1256efc00565697?Opendocument
(accessed September 18, 2007).

[45]
ExxonMobil operates the billion-barrel Zafiro field off Bioko Island; Marathon
operates the Alba gas/condensate field and is a partner in onshore facilities
and in the country’s planned liquefied natural gas facility; Hess
operates the producing Ceiba field as well as the Northern Block G project off
Rio Muni; and Chevron operates Block L, which has proved unsuccessful to date.
Devon was a minority partner in Zafiro and had an interest in exploration Block
P off Rio Muni, but sold its assets to national oil company GEPetrol for $2.2
billion in early 2008.

[46]
For example, during the visit of a CPDS delegation to
Washington, DC, and London in November 2005, companies operating in Equatorial
Guinea did not accept invitations to attend roundtable meetings on Equatorial
Guinea at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Chatham House
think tanks.

[50]
“‘My Government Will Not Allow Any Shred Of Corruption And We Will
Fight For Transparency’ Affirmed The Prime Minister Before The Board of
Directors From The Port Of Malabo,” Equatorial Guinea government press
release, October 20, 2006, http://guinea-equatorial.com (accessed November 15,
2006).

[76]
US Department of the Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency,
“Consent Order of Civil Money Penalty in the Matter of Riggs Bank
N.A.,” AA-EC-04-05, May 13, 2004, http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/eas/EA2004-44.pdf
(accessed November 21, 2008).

[77]
US Federal Reserve Board, “Cease and Desist Order in the Matter of Riggs
National Corporation,” 05-003-B-HC, January 26, 2005, http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/enforcement/2005/20050127/attachment.pdf
(accessed November 21, 2008).

[81]
“Statement of the People & Government of Equatorial Guinea in
Response to the Report on Riggs Bank of the Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations of the Committee on Government Affairs of the Senate of the
United States of America,” Equatorial Guinea government press release,
September 2004, para. 24.

[85]
Judgement, United States of America v. Simon P. Kareri, Case No.05-0212-01
(D. DC November 26, 2006); Judgement, United States of America v. Ndeye Nene
Fall Kareri, Case No.05-0212-01 (D. DC November 27, 2006). By early 2008
the Kareris had satisfied the monetary judgment through the sale of a suburban
Maryland property originally purchased with money obtained through a kickback
scheme that defrauded the Benin Embasssy in Washington, DC. Complaint for Forfeiture,
United States of America v. One parcel of real property described as: Lot
numbered seven (7) in the subdivision known as “The Glen,” as per
plat recorded in plat book 104 at plat 11943 among the land records of
Montgomery County, Maryland , Case No. 04-01525 (D. DC September 2, 2004);
Order, United States of America v. One parcel of real property, Case No.
04-01525 (D. DC March 12, 2008).

[96]
United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “Money
Laundering and Foreign Corruption,” July 15, 2004, p. 102. Human Rights
Watch has been told by five other international oil companies operating in
Equatorial Guinea that no such monopoly exists.

[100]
United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “Money
Laundering and Foreign Corruption,” July 15, 2004, p. 103. Human Rights
Watch requested confirmation of and further details about the status of
ExxonMobil’s relationship with Sonavi in an April 14, 2009, letter to
ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil’s reply to this letter did not include a response
on this issue. Letter from Ken Cohen, vice president, Public Affairs,
ExxonMobil Corporation, to Human Rights Watch, May 4, 2009.

[119]
According to the Senate investigation report and a report by USAID, Juan Olo is
the Equatoguinean president’s father-in-law, the former minister of
mining and hydrocarbons, and the president of the Board of Directors of Geogam.
In a letter from Marathon to Human Rights Watch, however, Marathon writes that
Juan Olo is “believed to be the brother-in-law of the president’s
wife.” Letter from Chaouch, April 28, 2009; Morales, “Technical
Support Project for Social Investment and Capacity Building in Equatorial
Guinea: Quarterly Report (August 7—December 31, 2006),” USAID,
January 31, 2007, pp. 21-22; United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations, “Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption,” July 15,
2004, p. 103.

[126]
Letter from Garrigo, June 3, 2009. In the letter, Chevron also said that
“any type of inquiry that is material to the company” would be
reported in its filings with the SEC. A search of Chevron’s annual Form
10-K filings from 2004 through 2009 revealed no mention of the SEC Equatorial
Guinea investigation. Ibid.; Chevron Corporation, “Form 10-K,”
filed with the US SEC, for fiscal years ending December 31, 2008, December 31,
2007, December 31, 2006, December 31, 2005, and December 31, 2004, http://investor.chevron.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=130102&p=irol-sec&secCat01.1_rs=21&secCat01.1_rc=10&control_searchbox=&control_selectgroup=1
(accessed June 5, 2009).

[127]
Letter from Chaouch, April 28, 2009; Letter from Klaassen, May 5, 2009; Letter
from Marchetti, May 5, 2009; Letter from Cohen, May 4, 2009.

[148]
“Statement of the People & Government of Equatorial Guinea in
Response to the Report on Riggs Bank of the Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations of the Committee on Government Affairs of the Senate of the
United States of America,” Equatorial Guinea government press release,
September 2004.

[152]
Ibid. For a detailed account of the deportation, see also Peter Maass, “A
Touch of Crude: How the Pursuit of Oil is Propping up the West African
Dictatorship of Teodoro Obiang,” Mother Jones, January/February
2005, http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/01/12_400.html (accessed
December 13, 2008).

[158]
Babelon and Dahan, “Evaluation of the World Bank Group’s Activities
in the Extractive Industries: Equatorial Guinea Country Case Study,”
January 30, 2003, p. 6.

[159]
“Brownie Points for Malabo,” Africa Energy Intelligence, no.
360, December 31, 2003. This article reports that companies had already paid
$16 million in response to the government’s challenge.

[160]
The World Bank, “Equatorial Guinea: Second Petroleum Technical Assistance
Project,” July 1, 2002, p. 10. The Zafiro and Alba contracts were
renegotiated in March and November 2008, respectively. Ibid., p. 5.

[167]
According to Equatorial Guinea’s “model” production sharing
contract, “all information relating to this contract and petroleum
operations shall be kept strictly confidential and may not be divulged by any
Party without mutual consent” except under certain circumstances.
Republic of Equatorial Guinea Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy,
“2006 Model Contract,” 2006, http://www.equatorialoil.com/2006-round/PDF%20FILES/Model%20PSC_2006_English.pdf
(accessed March 12, 2008).

[168]
Human Rights Watch has documented cases of gross governmental corruption and financial
mismanagement in countries that do not fully disclose the amount and use of the
signature bonus payments. See, for example, Human Rights Watch, Some
Transparency, No Accountability: The Use of Oil Revenue in Angola and Its
Impact on Human Rights, vol. 16, no. 1(A), January 2004, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/angola0104/,
pp. 28-31.

[169]
Human Rights Watch interviews with government officials, Malabo, August and
September 2003. According to the IMF, bonus payments vary between $1 and $5
million. IMF, “Republic of Equatorial Guinea: ROSC,” April 18,
2005, Appendix I.

[174]
IMF, “Republic of Equatorial Guinea: 2001 Article IV
Consultation—Staff Report,” August 6, 2001, p. 8. At the end of May
2001 the government provided the IMF with a statement of oil revenue payments
made on a government account held abroad during 1999 and 2000, but did not
indicate expenditures paid out of this account or other transfers. Moreover,
there was no statement showing government oil revenue collected during 1999 and
2000 from CMS Energy, the US company operating the Alba field at the time.

[175]
Human Rights Watch interview with an official involved in those discussions,
Washington, DC, May 2005.

[195]
UN Statistics Division, “Social Indicators on Population,” December
2007, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/population.htm
(accessed January 9, 2008). The government of Equatorial Guinea, however,
claims a 2002 census shows the population to be over one million. The EIU
concludes that “[t]he total population is likely to be close to 700,000
people.” EIU, “Country Profile: Equatorial Guinea,” May 2008,
p. 12.

[196]
However, the UNDP calculated this rank using a 2005 World Bank regression
estimate that placed Equatorial Guinea’s per capita GDP (PPP) around
$7,874. Given that both the IMF and the EIU estimated Equatorial Guinea’s
per capita GDP (PPP) in 2005 to be nearly twice the 2005 World Bank figure, it
is likely that Equatorial Guinea does indeed have the largest gap between its
per capita GDP and its HDI score. UNDP, “Human Development Report
2007/2008 Data,” December 28, 2008, http://hdrstats.undp.org/buildtables/rc_report.cfm
(accessed May 25, 2009); EIU), “Country Report: Equatorial Guinea,”
May 2009, p. 14; IMF, “World Economic Outlook: Equatorial Guinea,”
April 2009. The HDI combines indicators of life expectancy, educational
attainment, and income into a single statistic that provides a measure of a
country’s social and economic development. UNDP, “Human Development
Report 2007/2008 Data,” December 28, 2008.

[197]
The World Bank, “World Development Indicators,” April 2009, http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/ddpreports/ViewSharedReport?&CF=&REPORT_ID=9147&REQUEST_TYPE=VIEWADVANCED
(accessed May 25, 2009). 2007 is the most recent year for which this data is
available.

[199]
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), “At a glance: Equatorial
Guinea, Statistics,” February 26, 2004, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/equatorialguinea_statistics.html
(accessed May 25, 2009). 2007 is the most recent year for which this data is
available.

[200]
UN Statistics Division, “Social Indicators on Water Supply and Sanitation,”
December 2007, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/watsan.htm
(accessed May 26, 2009). 2006 is the most recent year for which this data is
available.

[208]
The EIU estimates that Equatorial Guinea’s GDP in 2005 was $7.1 billion.
An estimate of government spending on health in 2005 was found by multiplying
Equatorial Guinea’s estimated 2005 GDP by the estimated percentage of GDP
spent on health in 2005. The calculation, therefore, was 7,100,000,00 x .016.
WHO, National Health Accounts Series, “Equatorial Guinea: National
Expenditure on Health,” July 9, 2007, http://www.who.int/nha/country/GNQ-E.pdf
(accessed April 3, 2008); EIU, “Country Report: Equatorial Guinea,”
March 2008, p. 12.

[209]
An estimate of government spending on education in 2005 was found by
multiplying Equatorial Guinea’s estimated 2005 GDP by the estimated
percentage of GDP spent on education in 2005. The calculation, therefore, was
7,100,000,00 x .006. The World Bank, “Education at a Glance: Equatorial
Guinea,” November 2007, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/EXTDATASTATISTICS/EXTEDSTATS/0,,contentMDK:21605891~menuPK:3409559~pagePK:64168445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:3232764,00.html
(accessed April 2, 2008); EIU, “Country Report: Equatorial
Guinea,” March 2008, http://www.eiu.com/report_dl.asp?issue_id=913078476&mode=pdf,
p. 12.

[223]
The Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights, para. 14(g). According to the introduction of the Guidelines, The
Maastricht Guidelines were an effort by a group of more than 30 experts on
international law to elaborate obligations, violations, and remedies under the
ICESCR. The guidelines are used internationally by governments, multilateral
organizations, and NGOs as guidance for interpreting the ICESCR.

[224]
Business for Social Responsibility, “Social Development Fund,” May
2, 2005.

[225]
Human Rights Watch was invited to attend this meeting, but as with past
invitations with very short notice. Some of these social projects were
identified at the National Conference on the Assessment of the National
Development Strategy held in January 2004.

[227]
An Administrative Council for the project included Ambassador John McDonald and
Brian Atwood of the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota (a former
USAID administrator) as development experts. The council met in Bata in June
2007 for the first time, chaired by the prime minister. The meeting did not go
well (the US ambassador was even blocked from attending the
meeting), and resulted only in agreement in the setting up of a
secretariat. No subsequent meeting with the development experts has yet
occurred, despite a commitment to hold a follow-up meeting in September 2007.

[228]
Morales, “Technical Support Project for Social Investment and Capacity
Building in Equatorial Guinea: Design and Implementation Plan (September 2006
through August, 2008),” January 31, 2007; Morales, “Technical
Support Project for Social Investment and Capacity Building in Equatorial
Guinea: Quarterly Report (August 7—December 31, 2006),” January 31,
2007.

[233]
Note from Lindsey Hilsum, diplomatic correspondent, Channel 4 News, to Human
Rights Watch, November 22, 2003. Moreover, in the government of Ricardo Mangue Obama Nfubea (2006 to 2008) the human rights
portfolio was elevated to the first vice prime minister, but that seemed to
have had little impact on the poor record of government human rights practices.
See “Equatorial Guinea President Names New Government,”
Agence France-Presse, August 16, 2006; “Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention Concludes Visit to Equatorial Guinea,” States News Service,
July 16, 2007.

[234]
UNHRC, Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Mission to Equatorial
Guinea, A/HRC/7/4/Add.3, February 18, 2008, http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G08/106/45/PDF/G0810645.pdf?OpenElement
(accessed January 20, 2009), p. 20.

[238]
“Equatorial Guinea Reaffirms its Commitment to Human Rights,”
official website of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, January 26, 2009,
http://guinea-equatorial.com/News/?NewsID=583 (accessed March 29, 2009).

[239]
UNCHR, Report of the special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and
expression, Ambeyi Ligabo, Visit to Equatorial Guinea, E/CN.4/2003/67/Add.2,
January 9, 2003.

[240]
The International Bar Association (IBA) visited Equatorial
Guinea in July 2003, as did Human Rights Watch in August and September that
year. Amnesty International and the IBA both attended a trial of coup plotters
in 2004 and the IBA returned to Equatorial Guinea in 2007. See, for example, IBA,
Equatorial Guinea at the Crossroads: Report of a Mission to Equatorial
Guinea, October 2003, http://www.ibanet.org/Search/Default.aspx?q=Equatorial+Guinea&btnSearch=Search
(accessed December 19, 2008).

[242] CPJ, “10 Most Censored Countries,” May 2, 2006,
http://cpj.org/reports/2006/05/10-most-censored-countries.php (accessed
December 13, 2008). This is the most recent year for which this data is
available.

[244]
The government claims that “freedom of the media and expression has
broadened considerably … we have 720 radios per 1,000 inhabitants …
[and the] number of private publications has grown from 1 in 1996 to over 15
today.” C. Ruben Maye Nsue Mangue, “Human Rights and
Democratic Development in Equatorial Guinea: Government Policy and
Observations,” speech at Chatham House, London, November 14, 2002, p. 8.

[246]
Others published, though irregularly, include El Correo
Guineo Ecuatoriano, a bimonthly newspaper published by the Gaceta
group that was discontinued for a while in 2005, Bantu Africa, Horizontes,
and Ecos de Mongomo.

[247]
Human Rights Watch interview with Manuel Nse Nsogo, Malabo, September 3, 2003.
He is also the vice president of Asociación de La Prensa De Guinea Ecuatorial. La Opinion
appeared irregularly in 2003, such as an edition on May 22, 2003, to mark World
Press Freedom Day, but it has since just been published on the internet.

[249]
Journalists from the state media also get harassed. On January 19, 2009, deputy
information minister Purita Opo Barila ordered the dismissal of four
journalists from state radio and TV broadcaster RTVGE for
“insubordination” and “lack of enthusiasm.” According
to Reporters without Borders the journalists David Ndong, Miguel Eson Ona, and
Cirilo Nsue and camraman Casiano Ndong were punished for failed to praise the
government’s “merits.” Reporters without Borders,
“Equatorial Guinea: Despotic Regime’s Absurd Methods Decried After
Four Journalists Fired for ‘Lack of Enthusiasm,’” press
release, January 23, 2009, http:// allafrica.com/stories/printable/200901230876.html
(accessed January 30, 2009).

[253]
UNHRC, “Concluding Observations on the Situation of Civil and Political
Rights: Equatorial Guinea,” CCPR/CO/79/GNQ, July 30, 2004, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/ff303399c6edc0c0c1256efc00565697?Opendocument
(accessed September 18, 2007). ASOPGE was created in January 1997 and has
organized a number of meetings on press freedom and HIV/AIDS.

[254]
In 2004 there were 54 journalists registered in the association.

[271]
Human Rights Watch met Nguema in September 2003 and observed that he was in
physically poor condition and showed signs of having been beaten. See also
Amnesty International, “Equatorial Guinea: Health Professional Action: Guillermo
Nguema Elá, Donato Ondó Ondó and Other Detainees in Black
Beach Prison,” AI Index: AFR 24/003/2007, March
19, 2007, http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGAFR240032007 (accessed
December 13, 2008).

[276]
According to the Geneva-based political risk consultancy, Avance EMS,
“The National Security Ministry is bringing charges of coup plotting
against the armed services and steadily applies torture to service the
allegation. Forced testimony was a pattern of interrogation used in October
2003 against preliminary suspects that quickly yielded further suspects.”
Avance EMS, Geneva, February 22, 2004.

[279]
In September 2004 the police had already arrested in Bata Air Force Cptn.
Felipe Obama, who has remained in detention subsequently with no charges filed
against him.

[280]
The prosecution had asked for the death penalty for six of the defendants,
including at least three who were tried in absentia: Lt. Col. Cipriano Nguema
Mba, the alleged leader who had fled the country in November 2003 after the
discovery of another alleged coup plot, Lt. Col. Florencio Ela Bibang, and
Felipe Esono Ntumu “Pancho.”

[281]
US diplomatic sources claim to have seen footage from
close-circuit TV showing this suicide. Human Rights Watch interview, Madrid,
June 20, 2008.

[282]
“Equatorial Guinea: Amnesty International Calls for Release of All
Prisoners of Conscience,” Amnesty International media briefing, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR24/006/2008/en/9c9a4eba-37cb-11dd-9ec6-1d6085451ee8/afr240062008eng.pdf.

[287]
Human Rights Watch interview with eyewitnesses to the police raid, November
2004.

[288]
For a detailed account, see Weja Chicampo, “Desde el infierno de Obiang. La rueda de prensa de Weja Chicampo,” press statement at a hotel in central Madrid, June 23, 2006, http://www.asodegue.org/junio2306.htm
(accessed December 13, 2008).

[289]
He was issued a letter of safe passage for his exit by the Equatorial Guinea
government, and a letter by the Spanish ambassador in Malabo to the authorities
at Madrid’s Barajas airport explaining the urgent nature of his arrival
in Spain.

[294]
For example, on June 8, 2005, airport police searched luggage for two hours and
confiscated documents in the possession of CPDS leader Plácido
Micó as he returned to Malabo from a trip abroad. The police told him
they were following orders. Human Rights Watch interview with Plácido
Micó, London, November 9, 2005.

[300]
The US Department of State reported that “[a]ccording to government
officials and a private foreign firm working closely with the military on
training programs, during the year a military court convicted at least one
member of the security forces in connection with Jaime Ndong Edu.” US Department
of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices—2008: Equatorial Guinea,” February 25,
2009.

[301]
“Equatorial Guinea: Arrest and Torture of Political Opponents Following
February Attack on Political Palace,” Amnesty International public
statement, AI Index: AFR 24/004/2009, March 25, 2009, http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGAFR240042009&lang=e
(accessed May 22, 2009).

[304]
Bibang, a deputy Armed Forces inspector, fled Equatorial Guinea in October 2004
after being accused of being in contact with one of the officers who had fled
to Spain in 2003. He had been sacked from the army following the arrest of Gen.
Agustin Ona, an armed forces inspector and uncle of President Obiang, in late
2003.

[314]
“Wonga” is a slang term in British English for money or cash. For
example, see Adam Roberts, The Wonga Coup: The British Mercenary Plot to
Seize Oil Billions inAfrica (London: Profile Books, 2006).

[315]
Attorney general of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, “Confidential
Report on the Attempted Overthrow by Foreign Mercenaries of the Lawful
Government of Equatorial Guinea,” February 22, 2005, pp. 7-12.

[316]
In February 1999 Severo Moto had attempted to purchased arms illegally and
recruit mercenaries in Angola for the purposes of a coup. He was arrested by
the Angolans and later released and sent back to Spain. On August 29, 2003, he
announced that he had set up a “government in exile.” Mann’s background included service in the British military and
work with Executive Outcomes in the early 1990s. Du Toit also had extensive
military experience, had worked briefly for Executive Outcomes in the 1990s,
and in 2002 through 2003 had been based in Guinea (Conakry) working as an
adviser with Liberia’s LURD rebels to assist their efforts to overthrow
the Taylor regime.

[318]
Servaas Nicolaas du Toit, “First Statement,” High Court of Justice
Queen’s Bench Division Between (1) Mr. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo; (2)
Republic of Equatorial Guinea, and (1) Logo Limited; (2) Systems Design
Limited; (3) Greg Wales; (4) Simon Mann; (5) Eli Calil; (6) Severo Moto,
October 2, 2004. According to two “agreement documents” with Severo
Moto, signed on July 22, 2003, by Simon Mann after their arrival in Equatorial
Guinea, a company called NEWCO would be established and would be the exclusive
provider of a number of goods and services, including investigation and
recovery of capital that had fled, and security, customs and excise, inland
revenue, and environmental control and protection services. Attorney general of
the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, “Confidential Report on the Attempted
Overthrow by Foreign Mercenaries of the Lawful Government of Equatorial
Guinea,” February 22, 2005, pp. 129-132.

[319]
Human Rights Watch interview with James Brabazon, September
2004. Brabazon, a freelance journalist, was to have filmed the coup but pulled
out shortly before the attempt was made.

[323]
Human Rights Watch interview with court clerk, Pretoria Regional Court. January
17, 2006. The trial had been set for three hearings starting on July 31, 2006,
and ending on August 25, but eventually was held in February 2007.

[328]
Nigel Morgan, a private security consultant who had regular meetings with Simon
Mann and London businessman Greg Wales, admitted to having passed on information
to South African intelligence prior to the coup, including details of a
document entitled “Assisted Regime Change in Equatorial Guinea”
that he received from one of them. Nick du Toit, one of the alleged leaders of
the group, also passed information on to the South African and was advised to
call it off, but failed to do so.

[330]
Benedict Moore-Bridger, “My Part in Coup Plot was
Mann’s Fantasy Says City Businessman,” Evening Standard,
July 8, 2008. The Equatoguinean government claims to be in possession of evidence
that Calil transferred $1 million from his bank account to that of Simon Mann
to finance the coup. The case has been closely monitored by Britain’s
Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism command at the request of the Equatorial
Guinean government.

[331]
This decision was based on information gathered by Spanish security and
intelligence services. A request in 2005 by Equatorial Guinea for Moto’s
extradition was rejected by Madrid on grounds that he would not receive a fair
trial. However, Spain is seeking a “safe country” to deport him to.
Human Rights Watch interview with Spanish diplomat (name withheld), London,
January 22, 2006.

[335]
Mark Thatcher and one British, one Italian and a Lebanese national were also
included in court documents and their roles delineated. Although penalties were
not sought for them an application was made to try them in absentia. The Equatorial Guinea government has issued an international arrest
warrants for Mark Thatcher.

[336]
These were the three with the least military experience: Mark Schmidt, Abel
Augusto, and Américo Ribeiro. They had each spent eight months, two
weeks, and five days in detention at Black Beach prison. All the prisoners
connected to this coup attempt were not allowed to meet their lawyer until
three days before the trial.

[337]
Two Equatoguineans were convicted of “reckless
behavior”—though they had not been charged with it—and were
sentenced to 16-month terms. Bones Boonzaier, Georges Allerson, José
Domingos, and Sergio Cardoso were each sentenced to 17 years in jail, while
Nick du Toit got a 34-year term. The prosecution had sought the death penalty
for Severo Moto and Nick du Toit.

[347]
Robert Mendick, “Smelly and the Coup Secrets on the
Cutting Room Floor,” Evening Standard, March 11, 2008.

[348]
This follows allegations made by the Equatoguinean government
against Spain that center around the role of two Spanish naval vessels,
dispatched to the Gulf of Guinea just prior to the coup with 500 marines on
board and equipped to remain in the area for up to 45 days. Mann alleged that
the coup was launched specifically with the Spanish elections in mind, and it was
believed the then Spanish government would provide “peacekeeping”
support immediately after the overthrow of the Obiang administration.
Spain’s minister of foreign affairs at the time denied to Human Rights
Watch that any coup was planned, and insisted that the Malabo government knew
about planned cooperative exercises with the Spanish navy. Human Rights Watch
interview, Berlin, September 2007. See also, Carlos Ruiz Miguel, “El difiícil acercamiento de España a Guinea
Ecuatorial,” Real Instituto Elcano, Madrid, 2004; Edward Burke,
“Spain’s Relations with Equatorial Guinea: A Triumph of Energy
Realism?” FRIDE Comment, July 2008, http://www.fride.org/publication/458/spains-relations-with-equatorial-guinea-a-triumph-of-energy-realism
(accessed December 15, 2008).

[352]
This happened again following the attack in February 2009 against the
Presidential Palace in Malabo. Several hundred Nigerians and Cameroonians
resident in Equatorial Guinea were detained for weeks without trial and a
number of them complained of maltreatment and have seen their goods
confiscated.

[354]
The Equatorial Guinea government launched a new campaign against illegal
immigrants resident in Malabo in October 2005, arresting dozens of people and
resulting in some 50 Cameroonians going to the Cameroon embassy to escape
“police violence.” Human Rights Watch interview with a diplomatic
source who did not wish to be identified, Malabo, October 20, 2005.

[356]
The Angolan Embassy in London requested Human Rights Watch’s assistance
in March 2004. A few humanitarian workers were detained for a couple of days in
Luba and a foreign missionary couple in Malabo during this crackdown.

[362]
Human Rights Watch interviews with State Department officials who did not wish
to be identified, Washington, DC, November 2004, June 2005, and October 5,
2006. In his farewell speech on September 28, 2006, outgoing US
ambassador Niels Marquardt noted that, “MPRI is partnering with the EG government
to provide management, administrative and human rights training to police and
military. Their team is living here and already working with the Ministry of
National Security and Ministry of Defense. The International Committee of the
Red Cross will be part of the training.” [362]
R. Niels Marquardt, “Latest Embassy News, Ambassador R. Niels Marquardt
Equatorial Guinea Farewell—Talking Points,” September 28, 2006, http://malabo.usembassy.gov/amb_marquardt_farewell_speech.html
(accessed December 15, 2008). On January 25, 2007, senior
members of MPRI, among them retired US General Willian Kernan, vice president
and general manager, met President Obiang and briefed him on the first three
months of a five-year program for training of military and presidential
security units. “Private US firm trains Equatorial Guinea army
units,” Agence France-Presse, January 30, 2007.

[365]
Human Rights Watch has copies of these benchmark non-papers on file. These
updated a set of nine benchmarks drawn up in 2005: on trafficking in persons;
police training; recent mercenary incident; elections; social services;
judiciary; conditions in detention facilities; human rights education, and
other human rights issues such issuance of visas to international NGOs.

[366]
This was still stated on MPRI’s website, http://mpri.com/site/int_africa.html,
as of April 29, 2007, but was apparently removed by January 2009.

[368]
US Department of State, Office of the Spokesman, “Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice and Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbassogo
Before Their Meeting,” April 12, 2006.

[369]
Senator Carl Levin, the ranking minority member on the Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote about his concern to Condoleeza Rice on
April 27, 2006, and then-Senator Joseph Biden, ranking minority member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to President Bush on May 17, 2006.

[370]
He was confirmed by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 15,
2006, sworn in as ambassador to Equatorial Guinea on October 16, and arrived in
Equatorial Guinea to take up post on November 14, 2006.

[371]
US Department of State, “Prospective Envoy Urges Closer US Ties with
Equatorial Guinea. US Ambassador-designate Johnson testifies before a Senate
Committee,” August 7, 2006, http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display,html
(accessed December 15, 2008).